CHAPTER II. 

 RUTA BAGA. 



CULTURE, MODE OF PRESERVING, AND USES OF THE RUTA BAGA, 

 sometimes CALLED THE RUSSIA, AND SOMETIMES THE SWEDISH 

 TURNIP. 



Description of the Plant. 



25. IT is my intention, as notified in the public papers, to put into 

 print an account of all the experiments, which I have made, and 

 shall make in Farming and in Gardening upon this Island. I, 

 several years ago, long before tyranny showed its present horrid 

 front in England, formed the design of sending out, to be pub 

 lished in this country, a treatise on the cultivation of the root and 

 green crops, as cattle, sheep, and hog food. This design was 

 suggested by the reading of the following passage in Mr. CHAN 

 CELLOR LIVINGSTON S Essay on Sheep, which I received in 1812. 

 After having stated the most proper means to be employed in 

 order to keep sheep and lambs during the winter months, he adds : 

 Having brought our flocks through the winter, we come now to 

 the most critical season, that is, the latter end of March and the 

 month of April. At this time the ground being bare, the sheep 

 will refuse to eat their hay, while the scanty picking of grass, 

 and its purgative quality, will disable them from taking the 

 nourishment that is necessary to keep them up. If they fall 

 away their wool will be injured, and the growth of their lambs 

 * will be stopped, and even many of the old sheep will be carried 

 off by the dysentery. To provide food for this season is very 

 1 difficult. Turnips and Cabbages will rot, and bran they will not 

 eat, after having been fed on it all the winter. Potatoes, how- 

 ever, and the Swedish Turnip, called Ruta Baga, may be use- 

 fully applied at this time, and so, ! think, might Parsnips and 

 Carrots. But, as few of us are in the habit of cultivating these 

 1 plants to the extent which is necessary for the support of a large 

 flock, we must seek resources more within our reach.&quot; And then 

 the Chancellor proceeds to recommend the leaving the second 

 growth of clover uncut, in order to produce early shoots from 



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