132 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part 1, 



ground ; the sowing and after culture are works of 

 gre.it niceness. The crop is large with good cul- 

 tivation ; but, as a main crop, I prefer the Ruta 

 Baga, of which the crop is immense, and the har- 

 vesting and preserving and application of which are 

 so easy. 



153. The farm I suppose to be in fair condition to 

 start with. The usual grass seeds sown, and so 

 forth, and every farmer will see, that, under my 

 system, it must soon become rich as any garden 

 need to be, without my sending men and horses to 

 the water side to fetch ashes, which have been 

 brought from Boston, or Charleston, an average 

 distance of seven hundred miles ! in short, my 

 stock would give me. in one shape or another, ma- 

 nure to the amount in utility of more than a thou- 

 sand tons weight a year of common yard manure. 

 This would be ten tons to an acre every year The 

 farm would, in this way become more and more 

 productive ; and, as to its being too rich, I see no 

 danger of that ; for a broad-cast crop of wheat will, 

 at any time, tame it pretty sufficiently. 



154. Very much, in my opinion, do those mis- 

 take the matter, who strive to get a great breadth 

 of land, with the idea, that, when they have tired 

 one held, they can let it lie, and go to another. It 

 is better to have one acre of good crop, than two of 

 bad or indifferent. If the one acre can, by double 

 the manure and double the labour in tillage, be made 

 to produce as much as two other acres, the one acre 

 is preferable, because it requires only half as much 

 fencing, and little more than half as much harvest- 

 ing, as two acres. There is many a ten acres of 

 land near London, that produce more than any com- 

 mon farm of two hundred acres. My garden of 

 three quarters of an acre produced more, in value, 

 last summer, from June to December, than any ten 

 acres of oat land upon Longlsland, though I there 

 saw as fine tields of oats as I ever saw in my life. — 



