1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



637 



more than ten cents, at which price they have 

 been lately sold in Richmond. Now is ihe time 

 lor holders of ihe Iret's to provide for tlieir use, Ijy 

 commencing and eflecting tliecsiahlishment of co- 

 cooneries ; and now aUo is liie time (or all who 

 desire to commence tiial hus^iness, to bu}' their 

 stocks of tref.s on the best lerms. The depression 

 of the price of trees furnishes no argument against 

 the profit of rearmg silk-worms; but, on the con- 

 trary, oilers a great addiiional facility, and another 

 element o!" profit. Let but every present planting 

 in Virginia be put next season to this use, in pro- 

 per manner, and we venture to predict that no 

 cultivator will have cause to repent his outlay for 

 the culture either of the trees or of their product 

 in silk. 



CULTURE OF RUTA BAGA. 



t'loin tlie Fanners' Momlily Visitor. 



Dear Sir — Believing ruta baua to be of great 

 valu^ to the siock liirmeis, and as the season lor 

 sowinii is at hand, I send you an extract from my j 

 i'arni journal, relaiive to my mode of culture tlie 

 first year, thouirh, as it was rny first experiment, 1 

 am liir from thinkini^ it to be the be^t mode. 

 However, as I was pretty accurate in detail, its pub- 

 hcation may be of use to my brother liirmers, by 

 inducing some one belter acquainted with its cul- 

 ture than myself, to point out the errors in my 

 process. 



In the fill) of 1833, I broke up three acres of 

 green sward ; the soil a stifi' loam, upon which I 

 carted ISOsingle loads of coarse manure, and in 

 1837, planted with potatoes, there being nothing 

 peculiar in the management, or extraordinary in 

 the crop. 



In the spring of 1838, I carted on sixty loads of 

 well rotted manure, which I ploughed in. so soon as 

 the srouiid was sufficiently dry, and on the 27ih 

 of May [ again ploughed, harrowed, and after roll- 

 ing smooth, marked it into squares of eighteen 

 inches, and |)lanted by dropping two or three seeds 

 ineach intersection, which was done by shaking the 

 seed fi'om a box, with a single hole in the lop. I 

 sowed from the 1st to the 4th of June ; on the 23d 

 began to weed, thinning out where the plants were 

 too crowded, and setting out where deficient, which 

 I continued to do occasionally when other work did 

 not press, till the 28lh July. On the26ih October, 

 I began to pull and cut, finishing on the 9ih of No- 

 vember ; and 1 found the plants last pulled as unin- 

 jured as the first, although they had been exposed 

 to several severe frosts. Thej'- were pulled by hand, 

 the workmen striking two plants together to shake 

 off the dirt, and then throwing them down, where 

 they lay spread for three hours to dry the loose dirt 

 that still adhered to them ; the tops were then 

 twisted off, and the plants thrown into lieaps lor 

 carting, so that each root v.-as handled three sev- 

 eral times. They might have been got into the 

 cart with less labor, but my object was to get them 

 into the cellar in a tolerably clean state. Havinfr 

 heard much of the difBcuity ol" keeping them in 

 cellars, from their tendency to rot, I stored in one 

 cellar, .1,500 bushels without injury to a single 



root, and 1 have now, (May 6,) more than 100 

 bushels as full and as fiur as when first placed 

 there. The cellar was thirty feet square, on the 

 noiiom ofwhich, eight inch limbers were placed, 

 and covered vviih plank two inches apart. The 

 whole was divided into two bins, with one loot 

 space between Ihi' bins, and one li)0i between the 

 bins ai'.d the cellar wall 5 the sides of ihe bins be- 

 iriir made with narrow boards, with a space of 

 l()nr inches between each board. 



1 led out my twelve hundred bushels to my 

 sheep, six hundred to my horned cattle, and the re- 

 mainder to my hoises. They all ale with avidil}-, 

 prelerrmg them to potatoes. For my horses and 

 caiile they were merely cut wi;h a spade; for the 

 sheep, they were passed through a vegetable cut- 

 ter. They were r-iiried in two cans, each comain- 

 iiior thirty baskets holding more than a buslit-l, and 

 weighing seventy-lour pounds. The number of 

 baskets was tweiityrone hundred, and the whole 

 weiifnt seventy-seveii tons. N umber of roots, 36,000 

 — as put in the extract from my journal alluded to 

 af)Ove. 1 an), sir. very respectliilly, yonroh'i ser- 

 vant, Leonard Jarvis. 



Ruta Bas:a, Dr. 



Tointeresi on three acres, at ^100 per acre, $18 

 Twice ploughing three acres, 6 



Harrowing and rolling, 4 



Seed, " 2 



To 130 days' work on above, viz. 9 days, 

 sowinir, 85 weediiiir, hoeiuij and settin<r, 

 and 36 drying and cintiritr — 130 days, or, 

 five monihs. at !«il3 i)er month, 65 



To 22 weeks' board, ai 9s. per week, 33 



Cr. 



By 2100 bushels at 10 cents, 

 Profit, estimating al 10 cents, 



Claremoni May 5, 1839. 



S128 



S210 



82 



$210 



Remarks. — Compared wiih the price of other 

 crops, this ruta-baga was richly worth twenty cents 

 the bushel ; say it wa.? worth only fifteen cents, the 

 net profits on these three acres of" ground were 

 one hundred and eighty -seven dollars. 



We are highly pleased to exhibit this evidence 

 from one of th.e first, and we believe the most ex- 

 tensive practical farmers in the state of New Hamp- 

 shire, in fiivor of the root culture. He shows by 

 this experiment what much manure will do (or a 

 succession of years : it ijives double payment in a 

 single year for ihe labor bestowed; and this dou- 

 ble payment will extend itself into a series of from 

 four to ten years, accordino; to the capacity lor re- 

 tention of the soil to which it is applied. 



MONTHLY COMMERCIAL REPORT. 



For tlie Farmers' Register. 

 The distempered state of affairs which ha? pre- 

 vailed since the resumption of specie payments 

 fourteen months airo, is succeeded by a second 

 suspension in Pennsylvania and the states south of 

 it. In this instance Philadelphia took th*' lead, 

 and the first movement is ascribed to l!ie United 

 Slates Bank — now a state institution, with very 

 extensive privileges, very extensively e.'^crcised. 



