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.2 THE GENESEE FAKMEE. ' ^' 



LARGE CROP OF RUTA BAGA. 



We have received a communication on the culture of ruta haga, from John T. Andrews, 

 Esq., of West Cornwall, Conn., which we are sorry the limits of the Farmer will not 

 allow us to publish. It is full of valuable information, and afibrds encouraging evidence 

 of the successful application of skill and science to farm husbandry. Mr. Andrews 

 says : " I devoted my head and hands to the work of agriculture with the full intention 

 of convincing my neighbors that the idea that a collegiate education spoils a man for a 

 farmer, is a popular error. I have succeeded so well that, though this is my second 

 year at farming, I have taken first premiums this fall, at our County Fair and American 

 Institute, on my cattle, sheep, poultry, turneps, potatoes, and ruta baga. I must add, 

 further, lest you should mistake me for a gentleman former, that the labor on my little 

 fanii is performed almost exclusively by my own hands. For much of the little I have 

 learned of the art of farming, I am indebted to the Genesee Farmer, Working Farmer, 

 and Albany Cultivator, of which I am a constant reader. To these I owe my success^ 



The quantity of land cultivated with ruta baga was one-fourth of an acre. The soil 

 was heavy and retentive of moisture, but safe from standing water by a gentle descent. 

 It had been for many years a meadow, and yielded but half a ton of hay per acre. It 

 was plowed, manured with twenty loads of manure per acre, and planted with potTttoes, 

 which were a complete failure. The next year it was j^Iowed again twelve inches deep, 

 and twenty more loads of manure applied per acre. After lying a few weeks, forty loads 

 of manure per acre were spread over the surface and plowed in seven inches deep. It 

 was afterwards plowed and dragged till the manure was thoroughly incorporated with 

 the soil. Furrows were then drawn with the plow, twenty-seven inches apart, in Avhich 

 was spread a mixture of guano from the poultry yard, nightsoil, ashes, and gypsum. 

 The furrows were then turned back over the manure, leaving the ridges twenty-seven 

 inches between. Four or five seeds were then dropped on the ridges in holes about 

 ten inches apart, and slightly covered with the garden rake. When the plants "were 

 sufticiently large to be clearly distinguished from the weeds, which were very numerous, 

 the hoe was vigorously applied, destroying all the weeds and leaving one plant in a 

 place. They were sown on the 20th of June and gathered on the 6th of November. 

 The leaves were very large, of a dark green color, reaching from one ridge to the other, 

 completely covering the ground. When gathered they were thrown into heaps of about 

 100 bushels each, and covered with straw and earth, to remain in the field until needed 

 for use. The crop yielded, by actual admeasurement in a sealed bushel, 416^ bushels, 

 or one thousand six hundred and sixty-six bushels per acre. This, at 50 lbs. per bushel, 

 would be 41|- tons of bulbs per acre, besides a large quantity of leaves, themselves valu- 

 able food for milch cows, &c. We speak advisedly when we pronounce 41^ tons of 

 bulbs per acre a larger crop than has ever been raised in Great Britain. 25 tons is 

 there considered a first rate crop, and is seldom exceeded. 



The quantity of manure which our friend applied appears excessive, and we hope, for 

 the sake of agi'iculture, quite unnecessary. Twenty loads of good manure to the acre is 

 a heavy manuring for ruta baga, and if to this is added 300 lbs. of super-phosphate of 

 lime, sown with the seed, a good and profitable crop will be obtained. Ruta ' baga 

 possess great power of drawing their nitrogen fi'om the atmosphere, if sujiplied with 

 available phosphates and carbon ; but if large quantities of nitrogen are suj)i)lied in the 

 manure, which was the case in the above experiment, this is employed in the organism 

 of the plant, and its nitrogen-collecting powers are unless. 



We hope to hear again fi'om our fi-iend, and trust he will continue to unite science 

 with practice, be as successfiU in his experiments as in the one just detailed, and, success- 

 ful or unsuccessful, give his results to the readers of the Genesee Farmer. 



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