RUT A BAG A CULTURE 



day. It makes its attack when the plants are in the seed-leaf : 

 and, it is so very generally prevalent, that it is always an even 

 chance, at least, that every field that is sown will be thus wholly 

 destroyed. There is no remedy but that of ploughing and sowing 

 again ; and this is frequently repeated three times, and even then 

 there is no crop. Volumes upon volumes have been written on 

 the means of preventing, or mitigating, this calamity ; but nothing 

 effectual has ever been discovered ; and, at last, the only means 

 of insuring a crop of Ruta Baga in England, is, to raise the plants 

 in small plots, sown at many different times, in the same manner 

 as cabbages are sown, and, like cabbages, transplant them : of 

 which mode of culture I shall speak by and by. It is very singular, 

 that a field sown one day, wholly escapes, while a field sown the 

 next day, is wholly destroyed. Nay, a part of the same field, sown 

 in the morning, will sometimes escape, while the part, sown in the 

 afternoon, will be destroyed ; and, sometimes the afternoon 

 sowing is the part that is spared. To find a remedy for this evil 

 has posed all the heads of all the naturalists and chemists of 

 England. As an evil, the smut in wheat ; the wiieworm ; the 

 grubs above-ground and underground ; 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 known. But, the Turnip 

 Fly is the English 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 piemium 

 offered, has only produced pretended remedies, which have led 

 to disappointment and mortification ; and, I have no hesitation 

 to say, that, if any man could find out a real remedy, and could 

 communicate the means of cure, while he kept the nature of the 

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

 cover 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 existed in Long Island. 

 This was the first question which I put to every one of my neigh 

 bours, 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 circumstance, besides others that I 

 have to mention by and by, gives to the stock-farmer in America 

 so great an advantage over the farmer in England, or in any part 

 of the middle and northern parts of Europe, that it is truly wonder 

 ful that the culture of this root has not, long ago, become general 

 in this country. 



40. The time of sozving, then, may be, as circumstances may 

 require, from the 2$th of June, to about the loth of July, as the 



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