Coffee and chicory

by P. L. Simmonds

But the best method is found to be that of digging up the roots with double-pronged strongly-made iron forks, the blades being about 14 inches in length, and each fork, with shaft and handle complete, weighing about 8 lbs.

The plan of ploughing is liable to bring too much of the subsoil to the surface, and costs quite as much, if not more, than digging.

The advantage which is looked for in ploughing, is to ensure getting the roots up from a greater depth than can be done by digging, as a great number break off about 8 or 9 inches long, unless a boy is employed to assist the diggers, and is very careful to pull the top at the precise time that the man presses the root upward with his fork.

When dug, the tops should be neatly cut off, and the roots conveyed to the washing-house to be cleaned. Sometimes they are earthed in pits, but, generally speaking, they are taken to the washing-house immediately after being dug up.

In the former case, on the Continent, the roots, with the leaves cut off, are thrown, in heaps of from four to six feet in length, width, and height, on the surface of the ground; some straw and then some earth are put around. But generally the growers deliver the roots to the manufacturers from the latter end of August to November, by whom they are immediately dried.

The root is from 2 to 4 inches thick, 3 to 7 inches long, and occasionally, in a good soil, 3 lbs. in weight. In Brunswick they obtain from 4 to 6 tons of root per Brunswick acre.

The weight of the crop depends entirely upon the richness or poverty of the soil, the tillage and manure it has received, and other circumstances. The fault in England is the striving to grow as heavy a crop as possible, to the very great detriment of the quality of the root for powder.

In Brunswick the price of the root in the original state varies from 20s. to 40s. per ton, according as the crops have been good or bad, and an acre will realise from 5l. to 7l. The cost for cultivation is from 3l. 15s. to 4l. 10s.; 1½ to 2 tons is about an average crop.

Mr. William Strickney, who has grown and prepared chicory for the manufacturer to a very great extent, on a large farm near Hull, estimates the expense of the cultivation of chicory there at 4l. 5s. 6d. per acre, and if we add to this 2l. 10s. for rent, manure, &c., it gives 6l. 15s. 6d. The produce on suitable land he states to be from 8 to 12 tons per acre, and it requires 4 tons of green root to make 1 ton of dried. In the dried state the root is worth from 12l. to 24l. per ton. Take 10 tons per acre, at 2l. 10s. per ton, and this would leave a profit per acre of 18l. 4s. 6d.

Another competent agricultural authority states that the price of 2¼ tons of dry root for the acre, at 12l. per ton, would be 27l.; deducting 7l. for rent, labour, and other expenses, this would leave a profit of 20l. per acre.