A DISCOURSE, READ BEFORE THE
Essex Agricultural Society,
In Massachusetts, February 21, 1820,
Suggesting some Improvements in the Agriculture
of the County.
BY TIMOTHY PICKERING,
President of the Society.
(Concluded from page 272.)
II. On Root Crops.
Premiums having been proposed to encourage the raising of Carrots, Rutga Baga and Mangel Wurtzel; and as these articles, cultivated extensively, are of vast importance to farmers; I can perhaps in no way better promote the views of the Society, in their vote before mentioned, than by describing the methods of cultivating those roots, which elsewhere have been practised with great success, but to which, and indeed to the roots themselves (Carrots excepted) most of our husbandmen are strangers.
The introduction of Clover, and subsequently carrying the culture of the Common Turnip extensively into the field, marked distinguished eras in the improvements of English Husbandry. At a later period, Carrots were cultivated by some farmers: and within a few years past, the Mangel Wurtzel and the Rutga Baga have become objects of general cultivation. And now these five articles constitute essential branches of the highly improved Husbandry of Great Britain.
Common Turnips. These for a long time were raised (and perhaps this practice is still very general) by sowing the seeds broad-cast, and weeding and thinning them with hoes, till the plants stood from a foot to fifteen inches apart. But the most correct practice appears to be that of drilling the seeds in rows, thinning them at the distance of ten or twelve inches in the rows, and hoeing and keeping them clear from weeds. And this weak, watery root has been the principal food of immense flocks of store sheep, during the winter; and when plentifully given, only with the addition of straw, has served to fatten cattle and sheep for the market.
Carrots, Even these plants, so long after they vegetate extremely small, were also raised from seed sown broad-cast. But this awkward practice, I believe, has generally given way to the row-culture, whether the seeds were sown by hand, or by the instrument called a drill. In very rich land, great crops have been raised where the rows were only from twelve to fifteen inches apart. The great crop of 752 bushels, weighing eighteen tons and three quarters raised on one acre, in Salem, by Erastus Ware, in 1817, was in rows about sixteen inches apart. The seed was sown the 14th of May. But I am inclined to think a preferable mode would be, to sow the seeds in double rows about ten inches apart, with intervals of three feet between the rows, so as to admit a small plough, as well as the hoe, in their cultivation. In this case, a deep furrow being opened by the plough, the manure should be regularly thrown into it, and covered by four back furrows, so forming a ridge over the manure; and this ridge being laid level with a light harrow, or with rakes, or if the soil be in fine tilth, by a light roller, will then be ready to receive the seed. As soon as the Carrots are plainly to be seen, they should be hoed and weeded; or the weeds will soon outstrip the Carrots (which are of very slow growth at first) and render their cleansing vastly more troublesome and laborious.—They should also be thinned, to stand single, and only from three to five inches apart in the rows; or the roots will be small, and cost much more time in handling and topping (cutting or wringing off the tops) at the time of harvesting them. The entire crop, too, will doubtless be smaller than when the plants are thinned as here recommended.
The Mangel Wurtzel. This plant yields a much more abundant crop than the Carrot; and at the same time contains, in the same quantity or weight of roots, a great deal more nourishment; whence it is natural to suppose that it requires a richer soil than Carrots. I have not made sufficient trials to enable me to express a decided opinion on the best mode of cultivating the Mangel Wurtzel; and will therefore lay before you the successful practice, on strong land, in the county of Essex, in England, as it is stated, from a recent English publication, by the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture.[4]
The Mangel Wurtzel is sometimes called the Great, or Improved Beet, and Root of Scarcity; but now, more generally, Mangel Wurtzel, its German name. The following is the account of its culture at Bedford, in Essex.
"It may be proper, in the first place, to state what is meant by strong land. The surface soil is loamy, and from four to twelve inches deep, upon a bed of strong clay mixed with gravel. It is too heavy, and generally too wet, in the winter, even for sheep to eat a crop of turnips on the ground; and although good turnips are raised upon it, it is always necessary to draw them for the sheep, stall-fed cattle, or cattle in the yards."