52 RuTA Baga culture. [Part I. 



heads of all the naturalists and chemists of England. 

 As an evil, the smut in wheat ; the wire-worm ; the grubs 

 above-ground and under-ground ; the caterpillars, 

 green and black ; the slug, red, black, and grey ; though 

 each a great tormentor, are nothing. Against all these 

 there is some remedy, though expensive and plaguing ; 

 or, at any rate, their ravages are comparatively slow, 

 and their causes are knoiim. But, the Turnip JJy is 

 the Enghsh farmer's evil genius. To discover a remedy 

 for, or the cause of, this plague, has been the object of 

 inquiries, experiments, analyses, innumerable. Premium 

 upon premium offered, has only produced pretended 

 remedies, which have led to disappointment and mortifi- 

 cation ; and, I have no hesitation to say, that, if any 

 man could find out a real remedy, and could communi- 

 cate the means of cure, Mhile he kept the nature of the 

 means a secret, he would be much richer than he who 

 should discover the longitude ; for about fifty thousand 

 farmers would very cheerfully pay him ten guineas 

 a-year each. 



39. The reader will easily judge, then, of my anxiety 

 to know, whether this mortal enemy of the farmer ex- 

 isted in Long Island. This Avas the first question which 

 I put to every one of my neighbours, and I augured 

 good from their not appearing to understand what I 

 meant. However, as my little plots of turnips came up 

 successively. I watched them as our farmers do their 

 fields in England. To my infinite satisfaction, I found 

 that my alarms had been groundless. This circum- 

 stance, besides others that I have to mention by and by, 

 gives to the stock-farmer in America so great an ad- 

 vantage over the farmer in England, or in any part of 

 the midtlle and northern parts of Europe, that it is truly 

 wonderful that the culture of this root has not, long 

 ago, become general in this country. 



40. The time of sowing, then, may be, as circum- 

 stances may require, j^'07h the 25th of June to about the 

 10th of July, as the result of my experiments will now 

 show. The plants sown during the first fifteen days of 

 June grew well, and attained great size and weight ; 

 but, though they did not actually go off to seed, they 

 were very little short of so doing. They rose into large 



