1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



205 



the reason that the soil becomes weedy from culti- 

 vation, and consequently there is more labor requir- 

 ed to cultivate roots than corn. He had experiment- 

 ed some in the cultivation of potatoes. The dis- 

 ease has affected them considerably sometimes. 

 When planted on a dry, alluvial soil, without any 

 manure placed in the hill, they decayed much less. 

 He had found great advantage in taking the seed 

 from a distance. On one occasion he produced 

 some Carter potatoes from a hill town twenty 

 miles distant from his own farm. They were quite 

 small, and he hesitated about planting them. But 

 he obtained a very fine crop of excellent potatoes 

 from that seed, while fi-om large ones of the same 

 kind raised on his own farm, he did not obtain more 

 than two-thirds as many from the same quantity of 

 land. 



Mr. A. B. Maynard, of Onondaga county. New 

 York, was next introduced. He said he was a na- 

 tive of Conway and went West when two years of 

 age, when Western New York was a new country. 

 But now they had reached an advanced position in 

 agriculture in New York. He then spoke of the 

 manner of raising the mangle-wurzel, beet and car- 

 rot there. They plow in the Spring so as to have 

 the weeds killed, and plow two or three times also 

 in the Summer. The manner of prejjaring the 

 ridges for sowing and the after cultivation was sim- 

 ilar to that stated by Mr. Brown. He raised a 

 mangle-wurzel that weighed ten pounds when 

 washed and with the top oif, and a carrot that 

 weighed six pounds. He had tried fattening cattle 

 on roots and hay, keeping them shut up all the 

 time, and found that they fattened faster when thus 

 treated than when allowed to go out to drink. He 

 preferred the white sugar beet to any other root 

 for feeding stock. In his opinion, they improved 

 the land by shading it. In reply to inquiries, he 

 said that he had not found the sugar beet to ex- 

 haust the land. He had cultivated them many 

 years on the same field and found no depreciation 

 in the crop. 



To this it was suggested by Mr. Emerson, of 

 Boston, that the soil of that country was once the 

 bottom of a lake, and very fertile, and of course 

 could not be taken as a standard for others. 



Mr. LOVERING spoke with reference to the ne- 

 cessity for changing potatoes, in answer to the re- 

 marks of Mr. Williams, stating that he had culti- 

 vated one variety which he knew had grown on his 

 farm for thirty-five years, and he had no doubt 

 he obtained as good ones from them last year as 

 were ever raised anywhere. 



Mr. Dodge, of Sutton, spoke of the difficulty 

 from weeds among root ci'ops, and said that he had 

 killed the weed seed in the manure by patting salt 

 into the manure. 



Mr. BUCKMINSTER advocated the planting of small 

 potatoes, of about the size of hens' eggs, or even small 



er, if sound. If they are equally good, there is 

 an advantage in using them — ^because more plants 

 can be obtained for a bushel. He knew a gentle- 

 man by the name of Blanchard, of Wilmington, 

 who had tried planting small potatoes six years, and 

 the last year the crop was quite as good as that of 

 any previous year. He was glad that the cultiva- 

 tion of a variety of root crops was gaining favor. 

 Carrots are worth $12 per ton in Essex County. 

 One gentleman in Worcester County raised one 

 hundred and forty tons, which he sold for from $10 

 to $12 a ton. In this connection, he spoke of the 

 value of sweet apples, which he thought very bene- 

 ficial for stock. 



Gen. To^\'NE said he had cultivated small pota- 

 toes six years and he considered them decidedly 

 better than large ones. He would also feed sour 

 apples to stock, if sweet ones were not to be had. 



Dr. Fisher, of Fitchburg, stated that a gentle- 

 man in his town had planted very small potatoes 

 between twenty and thirty years, and he found 

 them as good as large ones. 



For the New England Farmer. 



RUEAL ECONOMY OF THE BRITISH 

 ISLES—No. 8. 



SOITHERX COUNTIES — KENT AND SUSSEX. 



If now my reader will take a map of England, 

 and travel over it with me, by counties, tlie jour- 

 ney, even if it be tedious, will confirm the remarks 

 I have made, in the seven former numbers, on the 

 system of English rural economy. 



England proper is divided into forty counties of 

 different sizes. They are commonly divided into 

 five groups — southern, eastern, midland, Mestern 

 and northern. We will commence our survey with 

 the seven southern counties, the poorest of the five 

 groups, to wit, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, 

 Dorset, Devonshire, Cornwall. 



Landing at Dover, we enter the county of Kent. 

 This county has a character peculiar to li&ei'i, first, 

 in its crops — half the hops produced in the king- 

 dom grow in Kent, all kinds of seeds are produced 

 for the supply of the London seedsman — kitchen 

 gardens, on a large scale, abound near the capital 

 — second, in the extent of its farms — many are not 

 of more than ten or fifteen acres, few exceed two 

 hundred acres — third, in its laws, by which lands 

 are divided, on death of the father, equally among 

 his sons, and if there be no sons, among the daugh- 

 ters. This county belongs to the great clay basin 

 of London, and is not of easy cultivation. It ad- 

 heres to its old methods of tillage, and the system 

 of Arthur Young has not been adopted here. The 

 wet lands by the banks of the rivers form almost 

 the only natural meadows, except the celebrated 

 Romney marsh, one of the richest pastures in the 

 kingdom, situated on the coast, and covering an 

 area of about 40,000 acres. There the fine race of 

 sheep, known as the New Kent, takes its rise, which 

 combines with a high quality of mutton, a wool su- 

 perior to that of other English breeds. With the 

 exception of this valuable breed of sheej), there is 

 nothing remarkable in the stock of Kent. The 

 crops are not what they ought to be, although imr 



