No. 11. 



77/ e Carrot Culture. 



341 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 The Carrot Culture. 



Mr. Editor, — I find in the last number of 

 the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, some 

 very valuable remarks on the culture of the 

 carrot, by Mr. James Brown, which are well 

 deserving the notice of the cultivators of that 

 root in this country. It has been sometimes 

 objected, that the expense and labour attend- 

 ing a large crop of carrots are more than can 

 be afforded, where the rate of farm-wages is 

 so high ; but the uniform testimony of all 

 those who have persevered to the end, is in 

 favour of clean, unremitted culture; while it 

 is those only who have fainted in a race 

 against the weeds, who have been satisfied 

 that " the thing will not do here." It is 

 readily granted that the trouble is great, but 

 those who have gone through it, assure us, 

 that after that point, to which all proceed — 

 a sort of half-culture — when the weeds have 

 made their last growth, and one more clear- 

 ing will have broken the neck, as it is termed, 

 of the labour, the trouble is comparatively 

 slight, and the satisfaction great ; while the 

 value of the crop is generally much greater 

 than almost any other that can be grown — 

 (witness the account published by Mr. Govven 

 in the Cabinet, page 190 of the 5th volume) — 

 and always commanding a ready sale. In 

 the culture of the carrot, the use of the sub- 

 soil plough will no doubt be found of infinite 

 importance. 



Mr. Brown says: "It is well known that 

 the carrot is very apt to be injured, and often 

 entirely destroyed while young, by small 

 worms eating the roots, particularly when 

 grown in a soil having long been under culti- 

 vation, as gardens generally are, and full of 

 manure. As my principal intention is, to 

 give a system of culture by which the carrot 

 may be grown quite free from this injury, I 

 will give a course by which, according to my 

 own experience, this might be effected. At 

 Mount Melville, where I served my term of 

 apprenticeship to gardening, the garden was 

 quite new, and had lately been levelled, 

 trenched and drained ; that part devoted to 

 the culture of the carrot having been removed 

 to the depth of two feet ; here the crop at- 

 tained a perfection which none of those raised 

 in the old neighbouring gardens ever reached; 

 and on mentioning the circumstances to the 

 gardener, he remarked — " All the surround- 

 ing gardens have long been under cultivation ; 

 and I am satisfied that ground that has been 

 saturated with manure, is not in a proper state 

 for the perfect growth of the carrot. Now, 

 our garden has been under pasture for fifty 

 years, during which time those gardens have 

 been under a constant course of cropping, 

 which has unavoidably required the continual 



application of large quantities of manure to 

 renovate and stimulate the soil ; thus the land 

 has become foul or sick; for along with the 

 dung used in garden cropping, insects in 

 every stage of their being, and particularly 

 in their egs. state, enter, and consequently 

 are dug into the soil ; and when these are 

 brought to life, they attack the young roots 

 of plants which grow in the soil, particularly 

 the carrot, as it is of a sweet, fleshy and soft 

 nature, without an outer skin sufficiently hard 

 to repel their attacks. Our garden has not 

 yet undergone those repeated manurings, and 

 is therefore clean ground, or more properly, 

 it is not yet adulterated with foreign particles 

 not natural to the soil, and that, I consider, is 

 the reason why our carrots are better than 

 our neighbours'." I was struck with the ra- 

 tionality of the theory, and was determined to 

 put it to the test of experience the first op- 

 portunity, which soon offered, by my taking the 

 care of the gardens of Henry Dunlop, Esq., 

 of Craighton. Here, I inquired if they had 

 good crops of carrots in the garden 1 and was 

 informed they were uniformly bad — the gar- 

 den being an old one afforded me an opportu- 

 nity, which I embraced by preparing the land 

 according to the method I had in view. But 

 before I enter into detail I would say, I had 

 always observed that the vermin which at- 

 tacked the carrot were, for the most part, 

 near the surface of the ground; and upon ex- 

 amination, I ascertained that very few of the 

 living insects were to be found deeper than 

 eight inches be'ow it; I therefore concluded, 

 that the eggs of the insects required the in- 

 fluence of tjoth air and sun to bring them into 

 life, although there is no doubt they lie dor- 

 mant at a greater depth perhaps for years, 

 requiring only to be brought within the influ- 

 ence of the sun and air to insure their vitality. 

 I therefore concluded, that the common mode 

 of trenching the soil for carrots was useless, 

 because the insects, although buried in the 

 act of trenching, had still the power of^ bring- 

 ing themselves to the surface, as nothing but 

 the open soil was above them. Now, the end 

 I had in view was, to trench the ground so 

 as that the upper stratum should be so buried 

 in the bottom of the trench as to have no con- 

 nection with the newer portion of the soil 

 placed above it, and thus I effected it. 



The soil was rather stiff; my first opera- 

 tion therefore, was to drain it, after which I 

 commenced trenching in the following man- 

 ner. I took out an opening along one end of 

 the piece, wheeling the earth to the opposite 

 end for the purpose of finishing, the opening 

 being three feet wide and two feet deep; I 

 then marked off another trench of the same 

 breadth with the first, and parallel to it, and 

 dug up the top spit of the second trench and 

 cast it into the bottom of the first opening, 



