800 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



to green -grocers, or to the consumers, or to ship's victuallers for the purpose of being 

 pickled or made into sour crout. 



4977. To save cabbage seed select a few fine specimens and plant them by themselves, 

 and \fheYQ they will be in no danger of being contaminated by others of the Brassica tribe 

 when in flower. The seed will keep many years. 



4978. The diseases of cabbages are the same as those of the turnip, with the exception 

 of the forked excrescence. On the roots of the plants are frequently found knobs, which, 

 in the preparation for transplanting, should, as we have already observed, be carefully 

 removed. 



Sect VII. Of some other Plants which might be cultivated in the Fields for their 

 Roots or Leaves, 



4979. Every hardy garden plant may be cultivated in the fields, and with very little 

 manual labor. Accordingly we find onions, spinach, cress, radishes, and even cucum- 

 bers grown by farmers, or farm gardeners in the neighborhood of the metropolis, and also 

 in other places. None of these plants, however, can be considered as belonging to agri- 

 culture, nor should we notice those which follow, but because they have been tried and 

 recommended by zealous cultivators, and are treated of -in some works on farming. No 

 plant can be considered as belonging to agriculture that is not in sufficient demand, or of 

 sufficient general use in feeding stock, as to admit of its frequent occurrence in rotations, 

 and such certainly cannot be said to be the case with the Jerusalem artichoke and lettuce, 

 now about to be noticed. 



4980. The Jerusalem artichoke {Helianthus tuberosus, L.) is a tuberous-rooted plant with 

 leafy stems from four to six feet high. It thrives well on soft moist soils, and even it is 

 said on moist peat soils, and it is alleged that its tops will afford as much or more fodder 

 per acre than a crop of oats, and its roots half as many tubers as an ordinary crop of 

 potatoes. (Agricultural Magazine, 1807-8.) The soil may be cultivated in all respects 

 like the potatoe. The tubers being abundant in the market gardens, are to be had at 

 little more than the price of potatoes. 



4981. Tffe common coss lettuce {Lactuca sativa, L.) has been grown for feeding pigs and other purposes, 

 Arthur Young informs us, in his Calendar of Husbandry, that he first observed the sowing of lettuces for 

 hogs practised in a pretty regular system, on the farm of a very intelligent cultivator (not at all a whimsical 

 man) in Sussex. He had every year an acre or two, which afforded a great quantity of very valuable food 

 for his sows and pigs. He adds, that it yields milk amply, and all sorts of swine are very fond of it. And 

 he thinks, that the economical farmer, who keeps many hogs, should take care to have a succession of crops 

 for these animals, that his carts may not be for ever on the road for purchased grains, or his granary opened 

 for corn oftener than is necessary. To raise this sort of crop, the land should have been ploughed before the 

 winter frosts, turning in by that earth twenty loads of rich dung per acre, and making the ridges of the right 

 breadth to suit the drill-machine and horse-hoes, so that in the month of March nothing more may be 

 necessary than to scarify the land, and to drill the seed at one foot equi-distant, at the rate of four pounds of 

 seed per acre. Where the stock of swine is large, it is proper to drill half an acre or an acre of lettuce in 

 April, the land having been well manured and ploughed as directed above, being also scuffled in February 

 and March, and well harrowed, repeating it before drilling. And at this period the crop which was drilled in 

 March (a succession being essentially necessary) should be thinned in the rows by hand, to about nine or 

 ten inches asunder. If this necessary attention be neglected, the plants, he says, draw themselves up weak 

 and poor, and will not recover it. "Women do this business as well as men. When about six inches high, 

 they should be horse-hoed with a scarifier or scuffler, having the hoe about four inches, or at most five 

 inches in width. With this sort of green food some kind of meal, or other dry meat, should be combined, 

 as without it, it is apt to prove very laxative, &c. This Sussex cultivator is not likely to be followed by any 

 rent-paying farmer, who can grow any of the clovers, turnips, or potatoes. The quotation aflbrds a good 

 specimen of Arthur Young's mode of writing on agricultural subjects, 



Chap. V. 



Of the Culture of Herbage Plants. 



4982. The cultivation of clovers and other herbage plants used exclusively as 

 food for live stock, is comparatively a modern improvement. They were known, 

 as we have seen, to the Greeks and Romans, and cultivated from a very early 

 period in the Low Countries ; but do not appear to have attracted much notice 

 in Britain till the sixteenth century, when our frequent intercourse with Holland 

 led to the introduction of some of our best field plants and agricultural practices. 

 At present clovers enter largely into the succession of crops, on all soils, and in 

 every productive course of management. Before they were introduced into cul- 

 tivation, when land was exhausted by grain crops, it was necessary to leave it in 

 a state of comparative sterility for several years, before it was either valuable as pasture, 

 or again fit for carrying corn. But at present, clovers are not only indispensable in the 

 cultivation of white and green crops alternately, upon very rich soils, but are the foun- 

 dation of convertible husbandry on land that is not so rich as to permit of a constant 

 aration, and which therefore requires two or more years' pasturage at certain intervals. 

 Lucern and saintfoin, though of much less value as general crops, are valuable plants 



