EHUBAEB. 221 



EHUBAKB. 



Rheum hybridum. 



The Rhubarb is a hardy perennial, cultivated in 

 this country exclusively for the leaf-stocks. There 

 is a large demand for it during April, May and June 

 for making pies, tarts, &c., &c. It sells well until 

 green gooseberries, currants, and early apples come 

 into market, when its season is over. 



To show how the demand for Rhubarb has in- 

 creased — fifteen years ago, with all our efforts, we 

 could, on a regular market-day in Newark, dispose 

 of no more than one hundred and fifty bunches. 

 Now, we often put one thousand bunches on the 

 wagon at one time, and, in the same market, find 

 less trouble to sell them than we did the smaller 

 number at first. 



When grown for market, the profit depends on 

 the earliness. This is obtained by planting in a 

 favorable locality and heavy manuring. We usually 

 send the first Rhubarb to market from the open 

 ground about the twenty-fifth of April. It is always 

 tied in bunches of from five to eight stocks of the 

 early sorts, and from three to five of the later ones. 

 At first, it sells freely at from fourteen dollars to six- 

 teen dollars per hundred bunches ; as the season ad- 

 vances the supply increases, and the prices fall grad- 

 ually to six dollars or four dollars per hundred. 



Our bed has been producing for the last seven- 

 teen years ; it has paid at the rate of from three 

 hundred dollars to five hundred dollars an acre. 

 When once planted, Rhubarb gives less trouble than 



