RUT A BAG A CULTURE 



clean ploughing that I regard as the surest means of a large crop, 

 especially in poor, or indifferent ground. It is a great error to 

 suppose, that there is any ground lost by these wide intervals. 

 My crop of thirty-three tons, or thirteen hundred and twenty bushels, 

 to the acre, taking a whole field together, had the same sort of 

 intervals ; while my neighbour s, with two feet intervals, never 

 arrived at two-thirds of the weight of that crop. There is no 

 ground lost : for, any one, who has a mind to do it, may satisfy 

 himself, that the lateral roots of any fine large turnip will extend 

 more than six feet from the bulb of the plant. The intervals are 

 full of these roots, the breaking of which and the moving of which, 

 as in the case of Indian Corn, gives new food and new roots, and 

 produces wonderful effects on the plants. Wide as my intervals 

 were, the leaves of some of the plants very nearly touched those 

 of the plants on the adjoining ridge, before the end of their growth ; 

 and I have had them frequently meet in this way in England. 

 They would always do it here, if the ground were rich and the 

 tillage proper. How then, can the intervals be too wide, if the 

 plants occupy the interval ! And how can any ground be lost if 

 every inch be full of roots and shaded by leaves ? 



62. After the last-mentioned operation my plants remained till 

 the weeds had again made their appearance ; or, rather, till a new 

 brood had started up. When this was the case, we went with the 

 hoe again, and cleaned the tops of the ridges as before. The 

 weeds under this all-pow T erful sun, instantly perish. Then we 

 repeated the former operation with the one-horse plough. After 

 this nothing was done but to pull up now and then a weed, which 

 had escaped the hoe ; for, as to the plough-share, nothing escapes 

 that. 



63. Now, I think, no farmer can discover in this process any 

 thing more difficult, more troublesome, more expensive, than in 

 the process absolutely necessary to the obtaining of a crop of 

 Indian Corn. And yet, I will venture to say, that in any land, 

 capable of bearing fifty bushels of corn upon an acre, more than a 

 thousand bushels of Ruta Baga may, in the above described 

 manner, be raised. 



64. In the broad-cast method the after-culture must, of course, 

 be confined to hoeing , or, as TULL calls it, scratching. In England, 

 the hoer goes in when the plants are about four inches high, and 

 hoes all the ground, setting out the plants to about eighteen inches 

 apart ; and, if the ground be at all foul, he is obliged to go in in 

 about a month afterwards, to hoe the ground again. This is all 

 that is done ; and a very poor all it is, as the crops, on the very 

 best ground, compared with the ridged crops, invariably show. 



