FARMS. 63 



The late sowing- of ruta-bagas is indispensable, as tlic apliides 

 (plant lice) are far less likely to attack the plants. Manuel 

 wurzel will do but little upon dry, sandy or gravelly soil — it 

 requires a rich and heavy one, but ruta-baga does best on what 

 the wurzel rejects." It is indeed upon precisely this kind of 

 soil — a heavy and rich one — that the astonishing crop of mangel 

 wurzels was produced. Some of the roots weigh eight or more 

 pounds. Dr. Webster defines this vegetable as the root of 

 scarcity, a definition hardly appropriate upon the Pickman 

 Farm. Previously to the underdraining in 1857, the water had 

 been carried off, if at all, by surface drains, some four feet wide 

 at top ; drains always greatly impeding the operations of 

 mowing and carting off hay. 



Ruta-Bagas. — When the small amount of labor which this 

 crop usually requires is considered, it will be found to be one 

 of the most remunerative of crops. It does not require high 

 manuring — and one or two applications of the hoe, and that, as 

 the owner says, at odd jobs and in dull weather, is all. Two 

 and one-half acres were ploughed in June, thus late to avoid 

 the plant louse, so destructive when sowing is done early ; and 

 the committee's judgment was that from two thousand to two 

 thousand fiv-e hundred bushels would be harvested from that 

 field. The roots were smooih and beautiful, and usually com- 

 mand one dollar per barrel. Dr. Loring's method of keeping 

 the ruta-baga is interesting, because it saves labor besides being 

 effectual. The roots are put into pits dug some four feet deep, 

 and of about the same width, and twenty feet long, more or 

 less. Notwithstanding the fair price of this crop at market, we 

 understand the owner to say all his roots are fed out to the 

 cattle and horses ; beginning from the time of their coming to 

 the barn. Every thing except the roots is subjected to the 

 steaming process — apparatus for which is not wanting. 



Carrots. — This crop, grown upon three-fourths of an acre, 

 seems not fully to have realized the reasonable expectations of 

 the owner. Still it is a fair one — we should call it a great one, 

 did not other root crops exceed it, though of the amount no 

 estimate by the committee was made. 



Indian Corn. — The corn-field, of fourteen acres, (together 

 with one acre of turnips,) is west of the railroad from Boston 

 to Salem. The time of the committee did not admit of visiting 



