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being sown too thickly. After the first thinning and weeding is over, 

 if done with care, the battle may be considered as won. After- 

 wards let them be cultivated with a plough or cultivator and kept 

 clean. When the time of digging arrives, the work will be greatly 

 facilitated by passing a plough directly along the side of the carrots ; 

 and they are easily thrown out by the hand. 



3. RuTA Baga. — Ruta Baga are differently estimated by differ- 

 ent individuals. Mr. Merrill of Lee, Valet of Stockbridge, Law- 

 ton of Sheffield, Bacon and Chapin of Richmond, Colt, Goodrich 

 and Plunkett of Pittsfield, highly approve of ruta baga ; and some 

 of them consider them of equal value with potatoes for swine or cat- 

 tle. Mr. Werden of Richmond, dislikes them, and says the gene- 

 ral experience of farmers there, is against them. It is difficult to 

 reconcile these contradictory statements. They are by no means so 

 nutritious as potatoes, especially those kinds of potatoes which are 

 most farinaceous ; and they are not comparable to carrots or pars- 

 nips or the sugar-beet for feeding stock. But they are a valuable, 

 though an exhausting crop ; and are raised at comparatively little ex- 

 pense. The golden yellow turnips with purple tops are the prefer- 

 able kind. The white kinds, and what are called the French turnips, 

 are an inferior plant. 



Mr. Merrill of Lee, applied them to the fatting of cattle with 

 much success. He purchased a yoke of cattle in the fall, in low 

 flesh, at $50, and having fed them through the winter on 2 bushels of 

 ruta baga each per day, with good hay but with no other provender, 

 he sold them in the spring for $170, at $8 per 100 lbs. 



Mr. Ashburner of Stockbridge, whose cultivation of vegetables 

 is nowhere excelled in neatness and productiveness, is in the habit 

 of transplanting his sugar-beet by merely making a hole with a hoe, 

 and laying them in horizontally keeping the tops free. He has found 

 planting with a dibble too slow a process ; and the plant is not so 

 likely to live, as the fine dirt is not so easily brought up to the small 

 roots of the plant. He has tried the transplanting of wheat by way 

 of experiment, but it was not successful. 



I have transplanted ruta baga with great despatch and entire 

 success, simply by ploughing a furrow ; then taking the plants from 

 a seed-bed, dipping them in water, separating them and laying them 



