FOOTNOTES:
[1] I am a man, and I consider nothing that affects man as foreign to me.
[2] I am an American, and I consider nothing that affects America as foreign to me.
[3] See the engraving of Col. Randolph's Hill-side Plough, page 18, vol. IV. Philadelphia Agricultural Society's Memoirs.
[4] Memoirs of the Society, Vol. III. Appendix.
[5] Six cubic yards contain 162 cubic feet, or three cart loads for a pair of oxen. A cart body, 7 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet high, in the clear, contains 56 cubic feet; and three times 56 are 168.—I doubt the necessity of manure being "in a rotten state," seeing it is to be so deeply buried, for this or any other root crop intended for the food of domestic animals; especially for Mangel Wurtzel, which to obtain a full crop, should be sown very early, as soon as the ground is dry enough to be ploughed. The powerful fermentation of fresh dung might impart to the soil a salutary warmth in the cool spring season—At least it may be worth while to try it.
[6] These narrow ridges, as formed by the plough, are sharp; by passing a light roller over them, they are flattened to a breadth of 8 or 9 inches. The light roller, drawn by a horse, that walks in the furrow between them, flattens two ridges at a time. Thus rolled, the manure will be covered 8 or 9 inches deep.
[7] A dibble is a simple tool, which may be of different sizes and forms, according to the uses it is intended to serve. If for setting (in transplanting) cabbages or other like plants, it may be a round stick about an inch and a quarter in diameter, shaved down at one end (in a slope of 8 or 10 inches long) to a blunt point. An old spade or shovel handle is well adapted to the purpose. If much used, the slope may be advantageously covered smoothly with iron. But for putting in seeds, the dibble may be in the form of the letter T. To make one, take a piece of wood about 3 feet 4 inches long, and about an inch and a quarter square. In one of the sides bore holes in a line, and insert teeth at the proposed distance of the plants in the row: if for Mangel Wurtzel, at 10, 11 or 12 inches apart; and let the teeth be as long (projecting from the head place) as the proposed depth at which the seeds are to be sown. On the opposite side of the head-piece, bore a hole in the middle, large enough to receive a handle of convenient length. On the top of the handle fix a cross-piece 5 or 6 inches long, to be grasped by the hand in using the tool.—With it, as many holes for seeds will be made, at every movement, as there are teeth in the head. The handle may require bracing, in like manner as a rake handle and its head is braced by means of bows.
It now occurs to me, that perhaps the light roller used in levelling the tops of the ridges may be set with teeth, and thus perform the additional office of making holes for the seed; and with vastly greater expedition than by dibbling. A light roller, long enough to flatten two ridges at once, of 13 inches in diameter, and furnished with two sets of four teeth each to pass along the middle of two adjoining ridges—and the four teeth of each set being inserted at equal distances in a circle of the roller,—the holes for the seed would be made at the desired distance of near one foot from each other. The teeth should be so shaped as to leave the holes made by them fairly open. For this purpose they may be an inch and a half wide and three quarters of an inch thick, where their shoulders are fayed to the roller, and taper thence to a rounded thick edge at their extremities. The same teeth, if not too long, may serve to regulate and expedite the sowing of the Ruta Baga seed.
[8] It is very important to have seeds of all kinds sown as soon as possible after the ground is ploughed and prepared to receive them, and before the moisture of the fresh-stirred earth is dissipated by the sun and drying winds; otherwise some may never vegetate, or not till after a fall of rain; and so precious time may be lost, and an uneven crop be produced.
[9] The time of taking up the Mangel Wurtzel must be regulated by the climate. There is sometimes a frost in the latter part of October, in this county, severe enough to injure this root, exposed, as the greater part of it is above ground. Light frosts, however, will do it no harm, while the roots remain in the ground, and in a degree sheltered by their leaves.
[10] Thomas A. Knight, Esq.
[11] This great produce cannot fail to astonish many persons living in this country. But let them recollect, that the upper layer of the soil, from which the crops are produced, is never changed here; that this layer, having been so often used, must have lost part of its ancient fertility; that dung is not spread in abundance with us as in Flanders; and that it is possible the species of potatoes grown here have degenerated.
[12] It is well known, that vegetables will grow in pure sand, by watering them, and that it is not till they blossom, or rather till they produce seed, that they perish. It is mentioned by Bracconnot, in the Annales de Chimie, for February and March, 1808, that he sowed the seeds of various plants in pure river sand, in litharge, in flour of sulphur, and even among metal, or common leaden shot; and in every instance he employed only distilled water for their nourishment. The plants throve, and passed through all the usual gradations of growth to perfect maturity. The author then proceeded to gather the entire produce, the roots, stems, leaves, pods, &c. These were accurately weighed, dried, and again weighed; then submitted to the ordinary means used in a careful analysis, when he obtained from these vegetables, all the materials peculiar to each individual species, precisely as if it had been cultivated in a natural soil. "Oxygen and hydrogen, (says this writer) with the assistance of solar light, appear to be the only elementary substances employed in the constitution of the whole universe: and Nature in her simple progress, works the most infinitely diversified effects by the slightest modification in the means she employs."
[13] "Giving a whale the boat," as the voluntary sacrifice of a boat is termed, is a scheme not unfrequently practised by the fisher when in want of line. By submitting to this risk, he expects to gain the fish, and still has the chance of recovering his boat and its materials. It is only practised in open ice or at fields.
[14] It has been frequently observed, that whales of this size are the most active of the species; and that those of a very large growth are, in general, captured with less trouble.