RUT A BAG A CULTURE 



and the harvesting, and preserving, and application of which, 

 are so easy. 



153. The farm I suppose to be in fair condition to start with ; 

 the usual grass-seeds sown, and so forth ; and every farmer will 

 see, that, under my system, it must soon become rich as any 

 garden need to be, without my sending men and horses to the 

 water-side to fetch ashes, which have been brought from Boston 

 or Charleston, an average distance of seven hundred miles ! 

 In short, my stock would give me, in one shape or another, 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 way, become more and more 

 productive ; and, as to its being too rich, I see no danger of that ; 

 for a broad-cast crop of wheat will, at any time, tame it pretty 

 sufficiently. 



154. Very much, in my opinion, do those mistake the matter, 

 who strive to get a great breadth of land, with 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 

 indifferent. 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 three 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 crop upon all the ground that 

 I put a plough into is what I should seek, rather than to have a 

 great quantity of land. 



155. The business of carting manure from a distance can, in 

 very few, if any cases, answer a profitable purpose. 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 waggon and tackle. Two 

 oxen and two men do the business in two days, 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 manner in which I have 

 treated the matter ; but, I have put the thoughts down as they 

 occurred to me, without much time for arrangement, wishing 

 very much to get this first Part into the hands of the public before 

 the arrival of the time for sowing Ruta Baga this present year. 

 In the succeeding Parts of the work, I propose to treat of the 

 culture of every other plant that I have found to be of use upon 

 a farm ; and also to speak fully of the sorts of cattle, sheep, and 



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