1^80 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



JtJKE 7, l-!7. 



((•"rom Cobbetl*s Aniefican Giirdt'ner ) 

 SBEDS. 



Some may 'je saved l>y evpry one who has a 

 gnrth'ti ; and, when raised, they oii>;ht to be care- 

 fully preserved. They are liest preserved in the 

 poll, or on the stalks. Seeds of many sorts will 

 he perfectly good to the hge of eight or ten years, 

 if ke[it in the pod or on the stalks, which sceds,ir 

 thre.shed, will be good for little at the end of 3 

 years or less. Hoivever, to keep seeds, without 

 threshing them out, is seldom convt;nieiit, ofttii 

 inipnictic-able, and always exposes theiri to injury 

 from mice and rats, and from various other ene- 

 mies, of which, however, the greatest is cartless- 

 ness. Therefore, the best way is, except for things 

 that are very curious, and th:it lie in a small com- 

 pass, to thresh out all seeds. 



They should stand till perfedhj ripe, if |)0Ssible. 

 They should he cut, O'- pull';d, or gathered, when 

 it is dry ; and they should, if ,ricssiblp, be dry as 

 dry can be, before thry are threshed out.' If, 

 when threshed any nioistuie remain about them, 

 they should be placed in the sun, or n ar a fire in 

 a dry room; and when quite dry, should be put 

 into bags, and hung up against a very dry wall, or 

 dry boards, where they will by no accident get 

 damp. The best place is some room or place, 

 where there is, occasionally at least, a fire kept in 

 winter. 



Thus preserved, kept from Ojien air and from 

 damp, the seeds of vegetables will kee|) sound and 

 good for sowing for the number of years stated in 

 the (ollowing list ; to which the reader will par- 

 ticularly attend. Some of the seeds in this list 

 will keep, sometimes a year longer, if very well 

 saved and very well preserve,l, and especially i( 

 cl.)sely kept from exposure to ttie open air. But, 

 to lose a crop from unsoundness of seed, is a sad 

 thing, anil it is indeed negligence wholly iuf^xcus- 

 alde to sow seed of the soundness of which we 

 sre not certain. 



Artichoke, 



Asparagus, 



Balm, 



Basil, 



Bean, 



Bea!i, (kidney^ 



Beet, 



Borage, 



Bro.'oli, 



Burnitt, 



Cabbage, 



Calabiish, 



Cale, 



Cale, (sea) 



Camomile, 



Capsicum, 



Caraway, 



C:irrot, 



Cauliflower 



Celery, 



Chervil, 



Cives, 



Corn, 



Corn silad, 



Coriander, 



Cress, 



Cucumber, _, 



Dandelion, 



Dock, 



Endive, 



Fennel, 



Years. j 



2 Squash, 



Years. 

 10 



Tansy, 

 Tarragon, 

 I hyme, 

 Tomatum, 

 Turnip, 

 Wormwood, 



Salsify, 



Sauq hire, 3 



Savory, 2 



Scorzenera, 2 



Shalot, 4 



Skirret, 4 



Sorrel, 7 



Spinach, 4 



Notwithstanding this list, I always sow new 

 seed in pn^ference to old, if, in al other respects, 

 r know tlie new to be equal to the old. .And, as 

 to the notion, that seeds can be the better for be- 

 ing ohl, even more than a year old, i hold it to 

 be monstrously absurd : and this opinion I give 

 as the result of long experience, most attentive 

 observation, anil numerous experiments made for 

 the ex|)re.ss purpose of ascertaining the fact. 



The following is an extract frr tn the speech rif 

 Colonel Knapp, delivered at Newark, upon the 

 occasion of the delivery, by a committee of the 

 American Institute, of the medals and dijdonuis 

 awarded to the citizens of that place, at the late 

 fair. 



" Every thing in this country has been brought 

 forward by protection, lu this bleak clime, but 

 lew- of the sustaining fruits of thet^arth were here 

 indigenous, or in' a perfect stale. Even the In- 

 dian corn, so often co.-.siilered as native here, was 

 with difficulty accliuiatcd. it was brought from 

 the south, and by degrees was coaxed to ripen in 

 a northern latilu le. The aborigines vvlio culti- 

 vated it, taught the pilgrims how to raise it ; ilipy 

 plu'ckfcd the earliest ears with the husk, and braid- 

 ed several of them together, for the next year's 

 seed, and this, care was rewarded by an earlier 

 and surer crop. 



The Pumpkin, brought from Spain, was fir.st 

 planted in Rowley, in Massachusetts, and it was 

 several years before they came to a hard, knotty 

 shell, which marks the tjueyankce pumpkin, su. h 

 as are selected for the golden j^ies of their glori- 

 oii.s thanksgiving iej<tivnl. 



Our Wheat was with difficulty acclimated. 



That brought fiom the mother country had grown 

 from spring to fall, but the season was not long 

 enough here to ensure a croji. Jt was then sown 

 in the fall, grew under the simws in winter, and 

 catchmg the earliest warmth of spring, yielded its 

 increase by midsuimner. 



Asparagus, which is now the delight of all as 

 an early vegetable, and for which .several millions 

 of dollars are paid our gardeners annually, is of 

 late culture in this country. At the time of the 

 revolution, asparagus was only cultivated on the 

 seaboard ; this luxury had not then reached the 

 farmer of the interior. 



The history of the Potato is a singular one. 



Rees' l'".ncyclopa;(lia states that the potato was 

 brought from Virginia, by Sir Walter Raleigh, to 

 Ireland. The writer should have said from S. 

 America, in the latter part of the sixteenth centu- 

 ry. He had no idea of its ever being used as an 

 esculent, at that time. It was pointed out to him 

 as a beauiilul flower, and its hard, bulby loot was 

 said, by the natives, to possess medical qualities. 

 He took it to Ireland, where he had estates, pre- 

 sented to him by Queen Elizabeth, and planted 

 it in his garden. The flower di 1 not im[u-ove by 

 cultivation, but the root grew larger aud softer. 



The potato in its native bed was a coarse ground 

 imt. The thought struck ihe philosopher to try 

 she |)Otato as an edible, and boiling and roaslino- 

 it, found it by either process excellent. He then 

 gave some of the plants to the peasantry, and they 

 soon became, in a measure, a substitute for bread 

 when the harvest was scanty. 



The potato was successfully cullivrted in Ire- 

 laud, before it was thought of in Engl.iud i! iriew 

 into favor by slow degrees, and was so little 

 known when our pilgrim fathers came to this 

 country, that it was not thought of for a crop in 

 the New World. It would have been an excellent 

 Uiing for them, if they had been acquainted with 

 the value ol the potato. It was not until 1719, 

 that the Irish potato reached this sountry. A 

 colony of preshyterian Irish, who settled in Lon- 

 donderry, in New Hampshire, brought the root 

 with them. These people found their favorite 

 vegetable thrive well in new grounds. By de- 

 grees, their neigiibors came into the habit of rais- 

 ing potatoes, hut many years elapsed before the 

 cultivation of them was general nmong the yeo- 

 irianry of this country. Long al'ter they were 

 cultivated in New England, they were held in 

 contempt, and the master mechanic often had to 

 stipulate with his apprentice, that he should not 

 be obliged to eat i)Otntoes. An aged mechanic 

 once informed me, that he raised nine bushels, 

 having at that lime (1746) a dozen apprentices, 

 but did not venture to ofler them a boiled potato 

 with their meat, but left them in the cellar for the 

 appretitices to get and roast as they pleased : he 

 .sooi found that he should not have enough for 

 seed, and locked up what was left. The next 

 year he raised the enormous quantity of 30 bush- 

 els : the neighbors stared, but his hoys devoured 

 tbein liming the following winter. 



About this time, some of the gentry brought 

 this vegetable on their tables, and the prejudice 

 against them vanished. Thus, by degrees, a taste 

 (or this food was formed, never to be extinguish- 

 ed. The cultivation of the potato is now well 

 understood: a rrop amelioiates, instead ofimpov- 

 ishing the soil, and the culture can be increased 

 to any extent. Thus, by the curiosity of one lov- 

 er of nature, and his experiments, has a humble 

 weed been brought from the mountains of South 

 America, and spread over Emope and North 

 America, until it is emphatically called "the bread 

 of nations." Slill the country from whence it 

 was taken, has been too ignorant or superstitious 

 to attempt its ctdtivation, until wilhin a few years. 

 Now the lights of science are cha^ing away the 

 long, deep shadows of the Andes. 



Rice was brought from India in 1721, and cul- 

 tivated, by way of experiment, in South Carolina. 

 It succeeded well, and was, for many years, the 

 staple article of the state. It seems strange, but 

 it is not more strange than true, that a vegetable 

 should have a moral aud religious influence over 

 the luind of man. Brahma coidd never have en- 

 forced his code of religious rites, with an hundred 

 incarnations, if India had not abounded in the 

 rice pla.it. His followers would have become 

 carnivorous, notwithstanding all the ravs of his 

 glory, and the awful exhibitions of his "might, if 

 he had not driven the animals away, and secured 

 the vegetable kingdom for b:s worshijij ers. Man 

 is, in spite of his philosophy, a creature of the 

 earth, and, in a measure, like the chamelion takes 

 the hues of his character from his position and 

 food. 



