Chap. II.] RuTA Baga cultuiie. 99 



fetch ashes, which have been brought from Boston or 

 Charleston, an ha erage distance of seven hundred miles! 

 In short, my stock Avould give me, in one shape or ano- 

 ther, manure to the amount, in utility, of more than a 

 thousand tons weight a year of common yard manure. 

 This would be ten tons to an acre every year. The 

 farm would, in this wa^', become more and more pro- 

 ductive ; and, as to its being too rich, I see no danger 

 of that ; for a broad-cast crop of wheat Avill, at any 

 time, tame it pretty sufficiently. 



154. Very much, in nn- opinion, do those mistake 

 the matter, who strive to get a yreat breadth of land, 

 vnih the idea, that, when they have tried one field, they 

 can let it lie, and go to another. It is better to have 

 one acre of good crop, than two of bad or indiflferent. 

 If the one acre can by double the manure and double 

 the labour in tillage, be made to produce as much as 

 two other acres, the one acre is preferable, because it 

 requires only half as much fencing, and little more than 

 half as much harvesting, as two acres. There is many 

 a ten acres of land near London, that produces more 

 than any common farm of two hundred acres. My 

 garden of thi-ee quarters of an acre, produced more, in 

 value, last Summer, from June to December, than any 

 ten acres of oat land upon Long Island, though I there 

 saw as fine fields of oats as I ever saw in my life. A 

 heavy ci-op upon all the ground that I put a plough into 

 is what 1 should seek, rather than to have a great 

 quantity of laiul. 



155. The business of carting manure from a distance 

 can, in very lew, if any cases, answer a profitable pur- 

 pose. If any man would give me even horse-dung at 

 the stable-door, four miles from my land, I would not 

 accept of it, on condition of fetching it. I say the same 

 of spent ashes. To manure a field of ten acres, in this 

 way, a man and two horses must be employed twenty 

 days at least, with twenty- days' wear and tear of wagon 

 and tackle. Two oxen and two men do the business ia 

 two davs, if the manure be on the spot. 



156. In concluding my remarks on the subject of 

 Ruta Baga, I have to apologize for the desultory man- 

 ner in which I have treated the matter j but, I have 



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