1 GO 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
J UNE 2 
“ Liquorice is taken out of the ground from Martinmas to 
the first of April, but the latter season is the best both for 
the liquorice and the buds. When you take it up, sort the 
small from the great, from which last you are to dress the 
chats with a fine knife. Then lay them in sand, one layer 
of sand and another layer of liquorice ; but wet not the sand 
with any moisture, than just so as you can hold it in your 
hand without running out no water; but it ought to be rock 
sand, such as is dug out of the pits about Pomfret, Notting¬ 
ham, and other places. You are to order the running buds 
and runners in the same manner, if early taken up, but the 
crown buds will do if thrown in a heap, and covered with 
mats, etc. 
“ The small liquorice is for the most part dried on a malt 
kiln, after it is chopped short with a hatchet, or some other 
edged tool, and then ground together in a mill, which is the 
readiest commodity of all. Or else it is pounded in a trough 
while it is green, and put into a mashing-tub, and mashed 
together with cold water, two days together. Then it is to 
be wrung out clean, and the juice boiled up in an iron pot 
to a black substance, called Spanish Liquorice, and at the 
place before mentioned, where it is raised, called JAquoricc 
Cakes. The cakes they make at Pomfret are round and 
fiat, with a stamp resembling the ancient castle of that 
town, now in ruin,* within the top of which castle there are 
two acres of land at this time employed in the propagation 
of this noble, useful plant. It is further remarkable, that 
one acre of the ground just mentioned has yielded five 
hundred stone weight (which is generally sold for three 
shillings and sixpence per stone) in one crop, which must 
be accounted a very good advantage, for in three years it 
amounts to eighty-seven pounds ten shillings, which is little 
less than thirty pounds per acre one year with another. 
Nor is the charge of tillage so dear, by a good deal, as hops 
and several other improvements are. 
“ Before I finish this account (says this noted corres¬ 
pondent), I cannot but remark, that about seven years ago 
all the liquorice at Pomfret was monopolised and engrossed 
by a set of merchants, Ac. But the engrossers, by sending 
too great a quantity together, found, to their cost, that it 
heated and smoked like a hayrick put up too green; which 
I mention by way of precaution to those that raise great 
quantities, who ought not to lay above two hundred stone in 
a heap ; for though this may seem a great quantity, yet a 
much larger has been taken up, and transported, or kept in 
one parcel. 
“ When liquorice is to be transported, all that is designed 
for present use is tied up in seven or fourteen pound 
bundles, neatly rolled up and bound with packthread. But 
the only way to be taken is to send it by water, and then to 
lay it in dry sand, or any other dry soil, a layer of liquorice 
and a layer of sand, so that the sand runs all over it and 
amongst it, and so an apothecary may thus keep it good for 
twelve months in his cellar. As for transporting of the 
roots for planting—if the small eye-roots, or runners and 
buds, were so transported in sand, it were better for them 
than to be sent naked, especially if it be a great way, and 
they are like to lie out of the ground long. If for a journey 
of fourteen days, they may be sent in bundles cut ready for 
planting; but if they arc to be out of the ground longer, 
then they moulder and rot. They should not be mixed 
head and tail if you send them any distance, but must be 
bound up in little bundles as above, and tied all one way, 
for readiness of planting. As for the crown buds, they may 
be sent by sea with a little sand to them, being much 
hardier than runners are. 
“ At the town of Pomfret are about fifty acres of ground, 
called Liquorice Garths, many of them in small apartments, 
which entitle the possessors to as many votes for members 
of parliament as they are possessed of those small parcels 
of land, all which causes the land tillage to be very dear, 
the common labourers having one shilling per day, and two 
drinkings, which amounts in all to about fourteen or fifteen- 
pence per day. But there are many other places where it is 
found, by experience, that there is as good liquorice raised 
as at Pomfret, and where men and buds are very easily 
procured. 
* Although this was written a hundred and twenty-three years ago, 
the manufacture of these cakes, impressed with “ the antient castle,” is 
still continued, or at least was so a few years ago.—H. 
“ As to the expenses of planting and preserving an acre 
of liquorice, the price of roots differ in proportion to the 
price that liquorice bears the year you send for them. 
When liquorice gives three shillings a stone, fourteen 
pounds to the stone, then crown buds give five or six 
shillings per thousand, and runners, cut into lengths, and 
tied up in bundles, give three or four shillings a thousand. 
“ Old planters of liquorice reckon that eighty thousand of 
plants will plant an acre. But computing twenty plants to 
a yard, and four thousand eight hundred yards to an acre, 
then an acre requires ninety-six thousand, at one hundred 
and sixty square poles to an acre, thirty yards to a pole 
square, and twenty roots to a yard, as may be seen in the 
example:— 
100 poles in one acre 
30 yards in a pole 
4,800 
20 roots to a yard 
1)0,000 total of roots to an acre. 
“Now, as they generally plant one fourth of stock buds, 
and three-fourths of runners, then there will be required— 
£ s. d. 
24,000 stock buds, at 5s. per 1000 when cheap .. GOO 
72,000 runners, at 3s. per 3000 . 3 0 G 0 
The charges of preparing the ground will be about 4 0 0 
Weeding, the first year, about . 4 0 0 
Weeding, the second year, for it is not houghed, 
but weeded with the grub and hand, at .... 3 0 0 
The same operation the third year, at. 3 0 0 
The taking up and bundling the last year, at.... 3 0 0 
T33 15 0 
“ So that, from what goes before, and what will by-and-by 
follow, it is plain, that an acre of liquorice will (one year 
with another, as to the debtor and creditor of it) stand as in 
| the underwritten scheme, the whole being taken at an 
average for three years. 
Debtor. 
Three years’ rent of the ground, at £5 per acre .. 15 0 0 
The whole charges of planting, weeding, and 
gathering . 33 15 0 
To the vicar, for tytlie, at 2s. per pound, i.e. 10s. 
per acre, for three years. 1 10 10 
In all. .. £00 5 10 
Creditor. 
Five hundred stone ofliquorice, at 3s. Gd. per stone 87 10 0 
A crop of onions, Ac., the first summer . 1 0 0 
Some winters crop for that year . 2 10 0 
In all*.T'J1 0 0 
Debtor and Creditor Balanced. 
Debtor, to rent, &c. 50 5 10 
Creditor, to goods sold. 01 0 0 
T40 14 2 
“ To finish this account, it is plain, from what goes before, 
that fifty’shillings an acre is allowed for the first winter’s 
i crop ; but if the ground be sowed with Michaelmas onions, 
carrots, lettuce, Ac., there seems to be no reason why all 
the three crops may not be worth half as much, at least, as 
I the one summer’s. And perhaps the same methods may be 
taken in other winters, when the stalks are gone, as used 
to be done on beds, at least as it used in the alleys of 
asparagus plantations. And by this it appears, that if a 
planter was possessed of a hundred acres of liquorice, and 
had a vent for it, it would bring him in near two thousand 
pounds a year, clear of all expenses. But an hundred acres 
is too much for one man, or in one county, so no more of 
that. 
* We have been obliged to deviate from the original statement as 
regards the credit total, which is, by an error in addition, stated to be 
.£' 100 , in consequence of which the result of “debtor and creditor 
balanced ” will show a considerable deficiency.—H. 
