RUT A BAG A CULTURE 



and, in this way, they are easily and most profitably applied, and 

 they come, too, just after the grass is gone from the pastures. An 

 acre produces about four good waggon loads of greens ; and they 

 are taken off fresh and fresh as they are wanted, and, at the same 

 time, the roots are thus made ready for going at once into the 

 heaps. Pigs, sheep, cattle ; all like the greens as well as they do 

 the roots. Try any of them with the greens of zvhite turnips ; 

 and, if they touch them, they will have changed their natures, or, 

 at least, their tastes. 



137. The Mangel Wurzel, the cabbage, the carrot, and the 

 parsnip, are all useful ; and the latter, that is to say, the parsnip, 

 very valuable indeed ; but the main cattle-crop is the Ruta Baga. 

 Even the zvhite turnip, if well cultivated, may be of great use ; and, 

 as it admits of being sown later, it may often be very desirable to 

 raise it. But, reserving myself to speak fully, in a future part of 

 my work, of my experiments as to these crops, I shall now make 

 a short inquiry as to the value of a crop of Ruta Baga, compared 

 with the value of any other crop. I will just observe, in this 

 place, however, that I have grown finer carrots, parsnips, and 

 Mangel Wurzel, and even finer cabbages, than I ever grew upon 

 the richest land in Hampshire, though not a seed of any of them 

 was put into the ground till the month of June. 



138. A good mode, it appears to me, of making my proposed 

 comparative estimate, will be to say, how I would proceed, sup 

 posing me to have a farm of my own in this island, of only one 

 hundred acres. If there were not twelve acres of orchard near 

 the house, I would throw as much grass land to the orchard as 

 would make up the twelve acres, which I could fence in an effectual 

 manner against small pigs as well as large oxen. 



139. Having done this, I would take care to have fifteen acres 

 of good Indian corn, well planted, well suckered, and well tilled in 

 all respects. Good, deep ploughing between the plants would 

 give me forty bushels of shelled corn to an acre ; and a ton to the 

 acre of fodder for my four working oxen and three cows, and my 

 sheep and hogs, of which I shall speak presently. 



140. I would have twelve acres of Ruta Baga, three acres of early 

 cabbages, an acre of Mangel Wurzel, an acre of carrots and 

 parsnips, and as many white turnips as would grow between my 

 rows of Indian corn after my last ploughing of that crop. 



141. With these crops, which would occupy thirty-two acres of 

 ground, I should not fear being able to keep a good house in all 

 sorts of meat, together with butter and milk, and to send to market 

 nine quarters of beef and three hides, a hundred early fat lambs, 

 a hundred hogs, weighing twelve score, as WP call it in Hampshire, 

 or, two hundred and forty pounds each, and a hundred fat ewes. 

 These, altogether, would amount to about three thousand dollars 

 exclusive of the cost of a hundred ewes and of three oxen ; I 

 should hope, that the produce of my trees in the orchard and of 

 the other fifty-six acres of my farm would pay the rent and the 



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