105 



statement in tliis report. That part of the land under consid- 

 eration where the above mentioned crop of mangel wurzel has 

 been this year grown, with the exception of the one -eighth of 

 an acre, which was in potatoes, was in corn in 1861 ; and the 

 crop, as Dr. Loring informed the Committee, was ninety bush- 

 els of shelled corn. The amount of manure applied for the 

 com crop was twenty-five ox-cart loads, spread and ploughed 

 in. For the mangel wurzels this year forty-seven loads were 

 put on, twenty-five being ploughed in and twenty-two loads 

 put in the drills ; the said drills being two feet apart. 



The remarks of Dr. Loring, casually made during the Com- 

 mittee's walk over the farm, on the subject of succession of 

 crops in connection with the field above mentioned, are re-' 

 garde d as too valuable to be lost. " Mangel wurzel will fol- 

 low ruta baga well, but the reverse is not true. E.uta baga 

 grows smooth and handsome on new land taken up in June 

 and well manured. The late sowing of ruta bagas is indispens- 

 able, as the aphides (plant lice) are far less likely to attack the 

 plants. Mangel wurzel will do but little upon dry, sandy or 

 gravelly soil — it requires a rich and heavy one, but ruta baga 

 does best on what the wurzel rejects." It is, indeed, upon 

 precisely this kind of soil — a heavy and rich one — that the as- 

 tonishing crop of mangel wurzels was produced. Some of the 

 roots weigh eight or more pounds. Dr. Webster defines this 

 vegetable as the root of scarcity, a definition hardly appropriate 

 upon the Pickman Farm. Previously to the underdraining in 

 1857, the water had been carried off, if at all, by surface 

 drains, some four feet wide at top ; drains always greatly im- 

 peding the operations of mowing and carting ofi" hay. 



RUTA BAGAS. 



"When the small amount of labor which this crop usually 

 requires is considered, it will be found to be one of the most 

 remunerative of crops. It does not require high manuring 

 — and one or two applications of the hoe, and that, as the 

 owner says, at odd jobs and in dull M^eather, is all. Two and 

 14 



