1913. 
THE) RURAL NEW-YORKER 
691 
HOW TO GROW THE ROOT CROP. 
Part II, 
GROWING THE CROP.—The land upon which 
the crop is to be grown should be free from water, 
but not high and dry, hilly soil; just such as would 
be selected for a crop of potatoes. In fact, land which 
produced a good crop of potatoes last season will be 
STRAWBERRY TRANSPLANTER IN N. J. Fig. 233. 
likely to be best adapted for the beet crop this season, 
because it is likely to be rich in plant food, and if 
the potatoes were properly tilled, the land will be 
fairly free from weeds. Upon this land I spread 
about 10 tons of barnyard manure and plow it under 
in April. As soon as the land will permit, the harrow 
is started, and followed by the roller, and the har¬ 
rowing and rolling is continued until the soil is re¬ 
duced to the consistency of fine ashes, every clod and' 
lump reduced to fine pulverized soil. Then I start 
the seeder, planting in drills three feet apart, and 
sowing about eight pounds of seed per acre. The 
seeder should be set in such a way as not to cover 
the seed with more than one-half to three-fourths of 
an inch of soil. This is very important, because if 
planted deeper the seed will fail to come up, will rot 
and never germinate. In this latitude the seed should 
be in the ground not later than May 8, and earlier if 
the soil is warm and in proper condition. In seven or 
eight days the young plants will begin to show, and in 
10 days, or two weeks, the rows can be readily fol¬ 
lowed. As soon as the rows can be followed, the two- 
horse riding cultivator is started with disks set on 
each side of the row as closely as possible while 
avoiding injury to the plants, throwing the soil away 
from the plants, while the space between the rows is 
thoroughly cultivated, for the dual purpose of killing 
every weed and keeping a good soil mulch over the 
surface of the entire field. This cultivation should 
continue at least once a week until the plants are in 
the fourth leaf, or practically four inches high. 
If, however, a heavy rain should occur the field 
should be cultivated as soon as dry enough to do so, 
’egardless of when the previous cultivation occurred, 
because otherwise the ground will soon harden, the 
surface mulch will be destroyed and the moisture 
necessary for the development of the crop will soon 
be dissipated in the atmosphere. Beets are gross 
feeders, and the soil water must be retained in the 
soil if a good crop is to be secured. 
11 TINNING THE BEETS.—When the plants are in 
’he fourth leaf the thinning out must be commenced. 
[ take a sharp hoe and chop out the plants and weeds 
'it the row, leaving the remaining plants one foot 
apart in the row, being careful to leave but one plant 
m any one place. The beet will refuse to develop if 
ic'ft in the company of weeds, or even with other 
plants of their own kind. This severe process of 
thinning out, where perhaps 20 plants are sacrificed 
i° every one saved, will not appeal favorably to the 
beginning, but when it is recalled that many of the 
fully developed plants will weigh 20 and even 25 
pounds, it will be readily seen that the space men¬ 
tioned will prove none too great. The young plants 
thus cut out make extremely good greens. When the 
crop is thinned out as above described, and cleaned 
of weeds, the cultivator should start again, the disks 
being replaced by the regular cultivator teeth, culti¬ 
vating as closely to the plants as possible without 
injury. When the plants are seven or eight inches 
high the disks may again be used, this time to throw 
the soil against the plants, thus covering any small 
weeds and relieving the farmer from further hand 
labor. At this period a very great impetus can be 
given the development of the plants by drilling in 
200 or 300 pounds per acre of dried blood fertilizer 
close to the plants, because the roots will then be 
seeking every available particle of plant food near 
the surface of the soil, but will not, as yet, have 
penetrated sufficiently deep to derive much benefit 
from the plowed-under manure. 
HARVESTING.—However, the cultivation should 
be continued and the soil mulch maintained until the 
spreading leaves begin to break off as the cultivator 
passes, after which the crop will care for itself until 
harvesting time arrives, which in this locality is about 
October 20. However, the sign that the beets are 
ripe is the appearance of dead and dried leaves at the 
base of the plant. The crop may be harvested rapidly 
and easily by two men, one on each side of the team 
and wagon, taking two rows, each wringing off the 
tops by hand and throwing the beets into the wagon, 
DR. JABEZ FISHER. Fig. 234. 
whence they are drawn to the root cellar and stored 
with as little handling and bruising as possible. If 
no root cellar happens to be available, a very satis¬ 
factory substitute can be secured by building a pen 
of poles, rails or plank of the required size and of a 
sufficient height to permit a person to stand upright, 
which should be located just where the straw stack is 
usually placed when thrashing the grain. The pen can 
be filled with beets, then covered over, and when the 
thrashing is commenced the straw can be stacked 
about and over the pen. thereby securing a first-class 
root cellar at very little cost and labor. As com¬ 
pared with potatoes the cost of producing a crop of 
beets is rather in favor of the beets. As yet there 
is very little trouble with plant diseases, or injurious 
insects, hence no spraying is necessary. The culti¬ 
vation of the two crops is almost identical; but har¬ 
vesting the beets is less burdensome and the crop 
never rots before being sold, or used. I estimate that 
the cost of producing a crop of beets is practically 
$2 per ton, and they are worth $8 to feed or sell. 
JOHN m’lennan. 
DR. JABEZ FISHER. 
“The Tolstoi of New England.” 
In these days of strenuous human endeavor, when 
any man’s life bridges over the wide gap of 87 useful 
years, with a good chance of rounding out the cen¬ 
tury, that man’s life becomes worthy of public record. 
Such a man is Dr. Jabez Fisher of Fitchburg, Mass., 
whose picture is shown at Fig. 234. Dr. Fisher is 
known as the Tolstoi of New England, for in labor 
and in thought he has kept far in advance of the 
army. Born in 1824, Dr. Fisher had the common 
school education of a boy of that time. He learned 
the use of tools and worked as a carpenter until 1847. 
Then he decided to study medicine, and received his 
M. D. from Harvard in 1850. He spent five years 
in practice at Fitchburg, and also began the develop¬ 
ment of an apple orchard. He served two years in 
the Massachusetts State Senate and then gave up 
politics and medicine entirely for fruit growing. Here 
is a man, then, who has been a “back-to-the-lander” 
for nearly 60 years. That he has not been a back 
number is shown by the following statement by an 
appreciative friend: 
These orchards were kept under constant cultivation, 
being also fertilized with manure, ashes, wool waste and 
soluble “phosphates'’ for some twenty years or more, when 
the effect of washing rains upon one pear orchard threat¬ 
ened to remove all the finer and more valuable portions 
of the soil on to the land of a neighbor. To overcome 
this effect the orchard was thickly sown with white clover, 
which prevented the further wash and gave a large 
yield, which was mown and left on the ground to decay. 
The next year the crop was so large that to prevent the 
general killing of the roots underneath the clover was 
piled in a circle around the trees as a mulch for this 
very purpose. This was the first application, so far as 
known, of the now famous “grass mulch system.” It 
worked so well that the same treatment was applied to 
all the fruit trees as fast as it could be, and has been 
continued ever since, now something over twenty-five years. 
During that time the trees have been annually fed with 
commercial fertilizers exclusively, their composition being 
based upon extended analyses of the total products found, 
wood, root, leaves and fruit. The ground taken was 
that whatever substances were found in these products 
were the ones to be supplied, and the proportions in 
which they were found should govern the proportion of 
the several ingredients for the best results. All later 
experience has tended to fortify this reasoning. 
In 1860 a greenhouse was built for growing foreign 
grapes and strawberries in Winter in pots. In 1862 a 
self-sown cucumber plant came up in a bed of earth and 
showed so much health and vigor that it was allowed to 
remain and its wants were attended to. The hint was 
taken advantage of, and after two or three years experi¬ 
menting the whole house (100x18%) was devoted to 
cucumbers, which sold at from 50 cents to $1 each. No 
competition was started for about ten years, since which 
time the business has become a standard one in many 
parts of the country. 
In 1854 a single vine of the Concord grape was secured 
from Mr. E. W. Bull, the originator, and was increased 
by propagation until a crop of 17,000 pounds was pro¬ 
duced on three acres of ground. Prices for the early 
crops were about 25 cents per pound wholesale. This 
gradually tended downward until 1S93-1894, when at 
4 cents per pound the temptation to grow them ceased 
and they were given the go-by as a market crop. 
A weather record was begun in 1857 and is still con¬ 
tinued in its fifty-fourth year for the United States 
Weather Bureau, and has been of value in cases of liti¬ 
gation. 
Thus it will be seen that this 87-year-old boy has 
been no eleventh-hour worker in the vineyard. He 
is still working and even planting new trees. A man 
does not work on in this way, shut up inside a clam¬ 
shell of prejudice or old ideas. Dr. Fisher was a 
public man during the most strenuous time of New 
England politics, for in the 10 years just before the 
Civil War the slavery question forced itself into poli¬ 
tics. and thousands of stern, hard-headed and prac¬ 
tical men obtained in some way the vision which made 
them put the “higher law” above any act of Congress. 
There can be no doubt that a man of Dr. Fisher’s 
force and ability would have been a political leader 
had he remained in public life. He says that his 
first and only vote for an elected President was cast 
for Lincoln. Since then he has been in the minority 
as Prohibitionist and Socialist. When asked for a 
statement of his views he says: 
Society has no right to tempt people to become crimi¬ 
nals and then punish them for yielding to such tempta- 
AN OLD RAIL FENCE TURNED TO FUEL. Fig. 235. 
tion. Neither eternal or less revengeful punishment tends 
to the personal benefit of the victim. If society gave 
itself to the solution of economic problems with half 
the vigor that it devotes to the worship of Mammon, 
through the capitalistic system, it would get in sight of 
the kingdom of heaven. 
If any of our readers think that last sentence is 
not true we hope they will live 50 years and see 
society obliged to come forward and admit its truth. 
We sincerely hope that the “New England Tolstoi” 
will round out his century of useful years. 
