64 
THE CASTOR BEAN, ETC. 
THE CASTOR BEAN. 
The castor bean, or palma christi, (Ricinus 
communis,) is indigenous to South America and 
the West Indies, but has long been cultivated in 
the southern part of Europe. It has for many 
years occupied a share of the attention of some 
of the farmers in the western states, south of lat. 
40°. It has been raised with advantage as far 
north as New Jersey, and it will grow in the 
most northerly states of the Union, where it is 
often raised as an ornamental plant. 
It requires a rich, loamy soil, well pulverised 
by deep plowing and harrowing. It is planted 
like Indian corn, when all danger of frost is 
removed, in rows six feet apart, and hills four 
feet distant from each other. The cultivation is 
performed with the hoe, plow, or cultivator, till 
the plant has attained a height of two feet, or 
more, so as to shade the ground and prevent the 
growth of weeds. The young plant is greedily 
devoured by the cut worm, and as it is important 
to have the full season to mature it, where there 
is danger from this source, it is better to plant 
thickly, say 8 to 12 seeds in a hill, and then thin 
out to two, after all danger is removed. Some 
allow but a single plant to remain in the hill, 
and think they secure a greater yield of seed, 
:c.j ~: v 
Castor bean. — Fig. 25. 
than if more were left. The harvesting com- 
mences as soon as the pods begin to ripen, which, 
near the Ohio River, is about the middle of August. 
A kind of jumper, or light sled, with a horse at- 
tached, is used to pass between the rows, and 
receive the ripened pods as they are cut from 
the branches with a sharp knife. These are 
placed upon a smooth piece of ground, on one 
side of the field, frequently termed the popping 
ground. When thus fully exposed to the sun, the 
pods contract and burst, often shooting out the 
seed to a distance of several feet. As the season 
advances, the crop continues rapidly to mature, 
and it is gathered till the frost effectually pre- 
vents any further growth. 
The plant is utterly worthless except for its 
seed, which it produces at the rate of about 15 
bushels per acre, though 30 are sometimes raised, 
worth about $1 per bushel, on the farm. After 
popping, the seed only requires to be run through 
a fanning machine, to separate the dirt and chaff, 
when it is ready for market or use. 
The oil is extracted by crushing and cold press- 
ing, which gives nearly a gallon of the best oil 
for each bushel of seed ; or the seed is boiled, 
either raw or after slightly roasting, and the oil 
is skimmed off as it rises to the surface. This 
yields a greater quantity of oil than cold press- 
ing, but is of decidedly inferior quality. 
The oil has been recently used for combustion, 
after separating it into olein for lamps, and 
stearin, for candles. The quantity imported 
into Great Britain, in 1835, was 1,109,307 lbs., of 
which 670,000 was consumed, the remainder 
having been re-exported. 
A company has lately erected a mill in Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio, for manufacturing castor oil in 
the most economical and approved manner. It 
is to be hoped that this will stimulate the pro- 
duction of the castor bean, far beyond what it 
has ever before reached in this country, and that 
it may soon become one of our important articles 
of export, besides fully supplying the home mar- 
ket. The present price of castor beans, in that 
market, is $2 per bushel. 
. »»^ 
FARMING IN MISSOURI. 
When I first settled here, I imitated others. 
Sometimes this did well enough ; at other times 
I found it was all wrong. I then began to make 
little innovations, such as plowing as deep as 
my team could pull the plow — provided I had 
what I supposed to be a sufficiency of soil — 
hauling out all the rubbish I could collect about 
my stable and cowyard, plowing in my wheat, 
after having given my ground from one to three 
plowings and harrowings before seeding, break- 
ing up corn land twice before planting, &c. 
Now, will you believe it ? I have been, and am 
still, laughed at for all this. But I could not 
make good crops without it. The truth is, to 
make a good crop of anything, I have to work. 
Since reading your paper, resources have pre- 
sented themselves, of which I never should have 
thought. It is only three miles from my farm 
to town. The tanner will give me all his bark 
and leather shavings, the saddlers and shoe- 
makers will give me their shavings, the pro- 
prietors of steam mills will give me their ashes, 
which contain a considerable quantity of char- 
coal; then there are livery and other stables, 
and many other resources, all of which I can 
resort to, free of charge. At home, I have an 
excellent limestone quarry, in the centre of my 
farm, which I have opened and worked con- 
siderably ; and I last year spread a quantity 
of lime on one of my worn-out patches of 
ground. I have a pit walled, and always ready. 
These, I find, from reading your paper, are 
all elements of fertility, if I only knew how to 
manage them. I shall begin my operations by 
turning in clover and buckwheat, and bring in 
the other helps as I learn how to do it. To all 
this, I may add, that you have pointed out modes 
of doing work on a farm, that I have never seen 
practised, but which, I feel confident, are better 
adapted to success, than those we follow here. 
Your management of meadow lands and wheat, 
is surely good. 
The past was a bad season, in this section, for 
corn and wheat. I never performed such a sea- 
son's work for corn, and I raised a tolerably 
