No. 3. 



Root Culture. 



95 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Root Culture. 



Sir, — In a late tour which I made during 

 a season of leisure, according to the recom- 

 mendation of the Cabinet, I have gained ex- 

 perience that will repay me the cost of the 

 journey ten times told. Having seen and 

 heard so much of the barren sands of Jersey, 

 I felt determined to see a little and judge for 

 myself: accordingly, one fine morning, I ac- 

 companied a friend from Philadelphia on a 

 gunning expedition up Cooper's creek; and 

 while he was plunging half-leg deep in mud, 

 I had sufficient employment of a very differ- 

 ent character to examine the modes practised 

 in these sands, from whence so much truck 

 is taken to the Philadelphia market, just 

 across the river. Much of the land in the 

 immediate vicinity is the property of the 

 Cooper family, who, I was given to under- 

 stand, are at length determined to sell a por- 

 tion for building purposes — a determination 

 which, had it been indulged in forty years 

 ago, would have created a town at what is 

 called Cooper's Point, of many hundred houses 

 by this time; but my business is now with 

 the country, and not with the town. I was 

 going to say, within a short distance from the 

 shore and in the midst of the sand, I saw bet- 

 ter management than I ever before witnessed ! 

 Why they must realize, by a single year's 

 crops, more than the value of the land, for I 

 found a man who has already taken three full 

 crops from the same field, sold them, and put 

 the money in his pocket. Near by, are the 

 farms of Mr. B. Cooper and his son, over which 

 I confess I cast an envious eye, regretting 

 that I had not an introduction to them, that I 

 might learn a mode by which they secure to 

 themselves and their out-door family that 

 comfort which is so visible in all with which 

 they have to do, their horses, cattle, hogs, and 

 even poultry, being all so well bred and well 

 fed. 



But the chief end I have in view is, to point 

 out to your correspondent B, whose ill suc- 

 cess in the culture of the beet has furnished 

 an interesting and most amusing article for 

 the last Cabinet, a mode, by which he will 

 Bee how they do the thing elsewhere, for here 

 I saw a piece of remarkably fine sugar beets, 

 after a full crop of garden peas that had been 

 harvested for seed ; forming a second crop of 

 great luxuriance, which will obtain a season 

 sufficiently long to bring them to perfect ma- 

 turity; a portion of the same field being 

 potatoes, following peas also, the two crops 

 having been worked together in the regular 

 way by means of the cultivator, without trou- 

 ble or much extra labour : these second crops 

 are expected to turn out equal to almost any 

 ia the county, where they have formed the 



only crops for the season. And here, too, I 

 saw the proposal — to sow the common turnip 

 in the corn at its last cleaning — carried out 

 to perfection; the turnips are now nearly fit 

 for the market, and after the removal of the 

 corn, which will be done by means of the 

 machine described at page 73 of the Cabinet, 

 vol. 5, they will have space to complete their 

 growth and become a most valuable auxiliary 

 in the winter- feeding department of a well- 

 regulated establishment. If our friend B 

 would devote some of his leisure to travel, 

 I think he would neutralize a portion of that 

 acidity which he seems to have imbibed by 

 staying at home to nurse his beet crop ; and 

 when the cultivation of that root becomes 

 better understood, I have no doubt much 

 of the contrariety of opinion that is now 

 entertained respecting its value as food for 

 cattle will be reconciled. In hot and light 

 soils, the crop ought not to be sown before 

 June, which gives ample time for the growth 

 and removal of some early crop ; or the seed 

 rtiay be planted on a clover-lay afler the first 

 cut of hay is carried, with the expectation of 

 perfect success : on cooler and heavier soils, 

 the crop may be sown earlier, but then the 

 plan adopted by Mr. Longstreth ought to be 

 practised, namely, to sow turnips on the land 

 at the last cleaning. Let it always be re- 

 membered, and never let it he forgotten, that 

 if the sugar-beet gets a check in its growth 

 and starts afresh, the saccharine principle is 

 as etJectually destroyed as is that of the sugar- 

 cane by a single frost, — nothing can then be 

 obtained from it but potash, which at once 

 accounts for the diuretic effect on the cows 

 belonging to the friend of B, We all know 

 the effect of a second growth of the potato 

 crop. J, Johnstone. 



Reading. 



Note. — We have long been urging upon our agricul- 

 tural friends the substitution of the sugar-beet as a se- 

 cond crop, and have at length the pleasure to say we 

 have witnessed the result of the practice in heavy cropa 

 of the greatest luxuriance. At the Horticultural Exhi- 

 bition at Philadelphia, there were roots of sugar-beet 

 of the most perfect growth, weighing 8 lbs. each, mea- 

 suring 18 inches long, and 18 in circumference, from 

 seed sown on the 19th June, on land that had borne a 

 crop of peas that had been harvested ripe ; and as every 

 one knows that quick growth is the all in all in root 

 cultivation, there is no question but these roots will 

 retain their juiciness and vigour to a late period in the 

 spring, and make good butter to the end. These fine 

 roots were exhibited by Mr. Benjamin Jones, of New 

 Jersey, who deserves a medal " for his crop of sugar- 

 beets after peas harvested." — Ed. 



It is in human nature to be indignant at 

 certain vices and crimes, but alas for us ! we 

 feel a virtue in our indignation and boast of 

 it as a merit ! 



