Some Minor Farm Crops. 
169 
plants are subjected to what is known as “ black-knot,” which 
is a contraction of the joints and has the effect of reducing 
the yield of the crop considerably. The actual yield may vary 
between two and fourteen packs, but usually amounts to 
between seven and ten. 
One of the drawbacks to the cultivation of the crop is that 
it is held to “ draw ” or impoverish the soil. This point is 
always in dispute, but it is certain that good yields of wheat 
can be obtained after teazles, although two crops of teazles are 
rarely taken from the same plot within a short period. So 
strong was the feeling that teazles impoverish the soil that many 
old Somersetshire leases contained a clause forbidding their 
cultivation, and a few farmers still suffer under the same 
restriction. But good farmers say that the only danger 
arising out of the cultivation of teazles is that the heavy 
clay land should be left unploughed for a long time after 
harvest, in which case it becomes difficult to break up. 
Further, they state that the plant sends it roots to a greater 
depth even than the roots of wheat descend, so that it feeds 
largely from the subsoil which is left by other plants 
untapped. The same prejudice, due to the alleged impov- 
erishment of the soil, was also held against the cultivation 
of woad — another plant used in the woollen industry which 
used to be grown in Somersetshire. Many of the best 
growers state that the charge of impoverishing the soil is due 
partly to prejudice and partly to the mismanagement of the 
soil after the harvest, and that it has no other foundation. 
For the purpose of improving the English stocks of seed 
some growers pursue the annual selection of heads from plants 
of a good type and prolific nature. But stocks of foreign seed 
have often been obtained from the English merchants, and 
used to good effect. This is seed which has dropped from 
the foreign teazles when they were in the warehouses of the 
English merchants. 
It is stated by growers that imported stocks of seeds, 
especially American, are better than English, although the 
American stocks were derived from the English, the seeds for 
the establishment of the American industry being first exported 
from this country about the year 1840. The centre of the 
American teazle-growing industry is around the town of 
Skaneateles, near the city of Syracuse in the central part of 
New York State. Formerly they were grown there in large 
quantities, but of late years the acreage has diminished. In 
growth and quality American teazles are somewhat similar to 
Somersetshire, with the exception that on accoufit of more 
favourable conditions at the time of harvest in America, and 
also that growers there house their products better during the 
