Chap. II. RUTA EAGA CULTURE. 77 



Iiave only produced pretended remedies, which 

 have led to disappointment and mortification ; and, 

 I have no hesitation to say, that, if any man could 

 find out a real remedy, and could communicate the 

 means of cure, while he kept the nature of the 

 means a secret, he would be a much richer man 

 than he who should discover the longitude ; for 

 <i\)out Jifty thousand farmers would very cheerfully 

 pay him ten guineas a year each. 



39. The reader will easily judge, then, of my 

 anxiety to know, whether this mortal enemy of 

 the farmer existed in Long Island. This was the 

 first question, which I put to every one of my 

 neighbours, and I augured good, from their not 

 appearing to understand what I meant. However, 

 as my little plots of turnips came up successively, 

 I watched them as our farmers do their fields in 

 England. To my infinite satisfaction I found that 

 my alarms had been groundless. This circum- 

 stance, besides others that I have to mention by 

 and by, gives to the stock-farmer in America so 

 great an advantage over the farmer in England, 

 or in any part of the middle and northern parts of 

 Europe, that it is truly wonderful that the culture 

 of this root has not, long ago, become general in 

 this country. 



40. The time of sowing, then, maybe, as cir- 

 cumstances may require, from the 25th of June to ' 

 •about the 10th of July; as the result of my expe- 

 riments will now show. The plants sown during 

 the first fifteen days of June grew well and attained 

 a great size and weight ; but, though they did not 

 actually go off to seed^ they were very little short 

 of so doing. They rose into long and large necks 

 and sent out sprouts from the upper part of the 

 bulb ; and, then, the bulb itself (which is the thing 

 sought after) swelled no more. The substance of 

 the bulb became hard and stringy ; and the tur- 



^lips, upon the whole, were smaller and of greatly 



