AND THE MANUFACTURE OF BROOMS. 241 



made in Saucon, Lehigh county, in Delaware and Lancaster counties, and 

 in Salem county, New Jersey. The crop is becoming one of the most 

 decided importance, and it will no doubt attract the attention of farmers 

 more generally than it has done ; while to its manufacture mechanical in- 

 genuity and capital will be turned. 2,585 tons of broom-corn, worth 85 

 dollars a ton, were sent away from Chicago in 1860. 



A machine has, however, been invented in New Jersey which threatens 

 to exterminate broom-corn. It takes a billet of white ash, and in a trice 

 cuts it fine like the Mexican grass, as used for brushes. The brooms can 

 be made for two cents each, and are said to look quite as well as corn- 

 brooms, and to be much more enduring. 



In Saratoga county sixty acres of broom-corn yielded from six to seven 

 hundred pounds of brush per acre, and on two acres as much as eight 

 hundred pounds per acre were obtained. The expense of cultivating and 

 securing the crop is about ten or twelve dollars per acre. 



In Montgomery county the raising of this crop is on the increase along 

 the valley, more than 1 ,000 or 1,500 acres being planted. It brings from 

 twenty to thirty dollars per acre on the field, when ready to cut. About 

 one -fourth of the brush is made up in the county, and the remainder out 

 of it. 



In Ohio broom-corn has been introduced in some of the rich vales, and 

 has produced in favourable situations about one-third of a ton of cleaned 

 brush ready for market per acre, worth from thirty-three to forty-three 

 dollars. The cost of cultivation of the corn is considered to be one-fourth 

 greater than that of Indian corn. The yield varies with the season. 

 Sometimes as many as six hundred brooms per acre are produced, with 

 twenty bushels of seed, worth as much as oats for horse feed. 



Analyses of the Paris belonging to Broom- Corn. 

 1. Analysis of the stalks : 



Removed from the soil 

 in a ton of Stalks, 

 lbs. 



Silex... 6.24 1.828 



Earthy phosphates 16.66 4.881 



Lime 6.25 1.831 



Magnesia 3.74 1.095 



Potash 30.40 8.907 



Soda 15.46 ...... 4.529 



Sulphuric acid 9.07 2.657 



Chlorine 2.14 0,627 



Peroxide of iron 2.61 0.764 



Organic matter and magnesia 6.24 1.828 



98.81 28.947 



