380 THE FARMER'S AND 



secured. In scraping, the panicles must first be laid 

 evenly together, and the stalks taken in the hand. If 

 this is not done in the field, and bundles not formed, then 

 must it be done with considerable labor at the lime of 

 scraping in the barn. 



Product. A common crop is seven hundred to eight 

 hundred pounds per acre. There have been raised one 

 thousand and eleven hundred pounds per acre, wilh eighty 

 to one hundred bushels of seed. The large kind grows 

 eleven feet high. 



Value of the Crop. About the year 1836 or 1837, the 

 brush sold at 12 1-2 cents a pound ; and one farmer in 

 Northampton sold his crop standing, unharvested, at one 

 hundred dollars per acre. Since then the price has been 

 decreasing. This year it has been four and five cents. 

 At six cents, the farmer, for eight hundred pounds, gets 

 8^8 an acre, besides sixty or seventy bushels of seed, 

 worth a third of a dollar a bushel ; so that he receives 

 $70 or upward for an acre. 



Good farmers regard the seed alone as equal to a crop 

 of oats from the same land. Some land owners have 

 rented their land for broomcorn, at $25 per acre, they 

 putting on five or six loads of manure. 



One farmer, who, a few years ago, cultivated fifty 

 acres in broomcorn, must have had an almost unequalled 

 income for a New-England farmer. 



Quantity. In Northampton, probably, two hundred 

 acres are raised ; in Hatfield, three hundred ; in Hadley, 

 four hundred ; in other towns, Whateley, Deerfield, Green- 

 field, Easthampton, Southampton, South Hadley, Spring- 

 field and Longmeadow, perhaps three hundred or four 

 hundred more ; in all, in the valley of the Connecticut, 

 twelve hundred or thirteen hundred acres ; the product, 

 in brush and seed, worth $1,000,000. 



Manufacture of Brooms. Individuals tie up brooms 



