1866 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
177 
The Cultivation of Teazles. 
The Teazle {Dipsacus FuUonum) is a product 
■which can be cultivated by only a few farmers, 
beeause were many to be raised, the market 
would be overstocked, and the prices fall below 
what 'would pay for the labor of raising them; 
besides, few farmers will favor a crop which 
occupies the land two years—i. e., two summers. 
The best Teazles are produced upon stiff, 
clayey loams, made friable and mellow by thor¬ 
ough tillage and enrichment. Nevertheless, on 
such soils. Teazles are apt to 'uduter-kill, proba¬ 
bly by the “ heaving ” ^f the frost, where the 
ground is not well protected by snow. Good 
wheat land is good enough for Teazles. The 
seed is sowed like carrot or parsnip seed, and 
at the same time of the year, that is, during 
April and May—only the rows are put farther 
apart for the first crop. A common way is, 
put the rows three and-a-half feet apart, and the 
jrext spring sow other rows between them, mak¬ 
ing the rows of one and two-year old plants, 
21 inches apart. Some other root crop may be 
sowed with the Teazles the first season. In 
Europe, Teazles are often sowed in beds and 
transplanted to the field; and it is perhaps ad¬ 
visable to sow a bed so as to have good strong 
plants to replace any of those that may fail. 
: The ground should be kept loose and free 
from weeds. The plants are thinned to 8 to 10 
inches apart, and grow freel}'^, each forming a 
broad flat mass like a bull thistle. The second 
year they are hoed, missing plants are early re¬ 
placed, and they, are left to grow. They make 
tops 4 to 6 feet high, and heads as shown in 
figs. 2 and 3. Those upon the main stems, and the 
branches, blossom and mature at different times. 
The product of an acre varies from 100,000 to 
200,000 heads, 130,000 being perhaps an average. 
The dressing of a single piece of broadcloth is 
estimated to consume 1500 to 2000 heads. So 
an acre will answer for 60 to 100 pieces of cloth. 
The heads are cut with a hooked knife, the 
stems being left eight, inches long, the men and 
boys who cut them being protected with leath¬ 
ern gloves; the cutting of 10,000 is a good day’s 
work. The heads are spread upon scaffolds, fre¬ 
quently stirred and turned to promote drying. 
and assorted into three sizes. “ Kings ” are the 
largest, which grow upon the main stem; these 
are stiff and coarse.—“ Middlings ” are the next 
in size, and grow on the ends of the branches; 
these are the most valuable. “ Buttons ” are the 
smallest, and are 'used for very fine cloths. 
Before the Teazles can be used, the “ spurs ” 
which are the stiff involucre segments seen at 
the base of the head in fig. 2, must be clipped 
off, leaving the heads as seen in fig. 3. This 
can be done by women and boys on the farm, 
and makes a difference in market of 25 cents 
per thousand. The price now is $2 to $2.75 per 
thousand, and they are marketed in boxes, made 
of ''Is boards, about 3 ft. 4 in. square by 6 ft. long. 
The culture of Teazles is by no means so 
precarious in this country as it is in England, 
where damp weather jn August fills the heads 
with water and causes them to rot before they 
mature. We are inclined to think that they 
might be .made a very profitable article of 
export, for our season is generally very dry, just 
when theirs is mgst hazardous to this crop. 
We now import a great many, chiefly from 
France, and these being better grown and better 
assorted than American Teazles generally are, 
are irreferred by manufacturers. We make 
the following .extracts on this subject from a 
letter to the American Agricultunst from Mr. 
Chester Moses, an experienced cultivator of 
teazles in Onondaga County, New York: 
“There is but little advantage in transplanting 
later than August, for the roots will not get 
strength to stand the winter." Bank manure 
makes teazles spongy and weak in the hooks. 
One man can tend four to eight acres the first 
year. The second year one thorough cultivat¬ 
ing, or running through with a light plow, and, 
a gooci noemg in May, is all the care the crop re¬ 
quires before cutting. In cutting it requires two 
or three men to one 
acre. The heads should 
be cut as soon as the 
blossoms are off, a small 
section being left for 
one or two weeks, for 
seed, but the teazles 
suffer by remaining on 
the stalks after the blos¬ 
soms fall. The seed 
makes good feed for 
sheep, but is so bitter- 
that it needs to be fed 
with corn or oats, until 
the sheep relish it. Tea¬ 
zles should not be plant¬ 
ed year after year on 
the same ground. The 
crop is profitable, quite 
so, when the price per 
thousand is equal to 
the price of wheat per 
bushel. Our average 
product is about 150,000 
to an acre. The pro¬ 
ducers sold the crop of 
1864 at $5 per thous¬ 
and, and that of 1865 
at $3 per thousand, the teazles being undipped.^ 
■—- - —- 
Several Plans for Destroying the Barn 
Weevil. 
JJ- Fig. 3.“—A BUTTON.” 
Our jocose suggestion of an expeditious and 
certain cure for this pest, together with a sober 
call for information how to do the work less ex¬ 
pensively, (p. 50, Feb. Agriculturist), has brought 
us in a fine array of testimony. This insect is 
a beetle, belonging to a family of the curculios 
or weevil, {curculionidw). Its Latin name is 
Calandra granaria, which means barn or grana- 
ry weevil, and it is never found except where 
grain is stored. Wheat, rye and corn are com¬ 
monly at¬ 
tacked by 
it, and 
some times 
oats, al¬ 
though it 
is thought, 
upon what 
evidence we know not, that it will live in other 
seeds if they are large enough. This is, prob¬ 
ably, a mere supposition, founded upon the fact 
that they are sometimes very hard to starve out. 
The grain weevil is nearly one-sixth of an inch 
long, and of the proportions shown in the ac¬ 
companying figure, though the size varies con¬ 
siderably. The color varies somewhat from 
dark reddish brown to nearly black. The snout¬ 
like proboscis is a marked feature, and placing 
the insect under a magnifying-glass, eighteen 
punctured furrows may be seen upon the wing 
covers, and scattered oval dots on the thorax. 
They are very active in their motions, and, 
when alarmed, quickly hide themselves, or if 
touched, “ play possom ”—feigning dead. 
The female lays her eggs upon the surface of 
the kernels of grain, (not in holes made by her 
beak, as has been stated). When they hatch 
the little worms bore directly into the kernels, 
and there grow-and undergo their transforma¬ 
tions, the grain, meanwhile, becoming lighter 
and lighter until the perfect beetle emerges, 
leaving the kernel a mere shell. This takes 
six to eight weeks. In the winter time the 
BARN WEEVIL. 
