56 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Febhuauy, 
broom that hung on a nail in the corner of our 
grandmother’s kitchen. The patch of broom- 
corn is not so common in the farmer’s garden, 
and the wandering broom-makers and cobblers 
have gone the way of all the earth. The house¬ 
keeper draws upon the country or village store, 
or upon the pedler, for her supplies, or buys her 
annual stock in the large city markets. Even 
those very convenient articles for cleanliness 
about the kitchen hearth, the pressed wings of 
turkeys and geese, have been driven out by the 
whisk brooms of the factories. Broom-corn 
has become a specialty, and is raised on 
a large scale in some localities, like to¬ 
bacco, hemp, and hops. As so many 
housekeepers depend upon the factory- 
made article, the consumption is very 
large. This crop, though not so profit¬ 
able as some others, is yet a very good 
one for soils that are well adapted to it. 
The crop has no unusual dangers or 
enemies, and the prices for the brush 
are quite uniform and remunerative. 
The soil usually selected is a well 
drained, sandy, or gravelly loam, quick 
and fertile, such as is found in many of 
our liver bottoms. Reclaimed muck 
swamps and bottom lands, with a large 
share of vegetable deposit, are found to 
make too rank a growth of leaf and 
stalk. If uplands are selected, they 
should be well drained and rich in al¬ 
kaline salts. The crop will grow in 
any land that will mature Indian corn, 
but might not prove remunerative. It 
is particularly important that broom- 
corn should be grown upon clean land. 
When the blade first appears, it is very 
small and hardly to be distinguished 
from some kinds of grass, and it remains 
in this feeble condition for two or three 
weeks. In foul lands, the expense of 
cleaning and cultivating is very much 
increased. It is on account of this 
weakness of the plant in the early 
stages of its growth that manuring in 
the hill or drill is particularly desirable, 
to push it along rapidly and make it 
show above the weeds. This fertilizer 
may be horse, hog, or sheep manure, 
well rotted and made very fine, or any 
of the concentrated fertil.zers that have 
a fair share of ammonia. If the plants 
are backward, apply ashes and plaster 
at the first hoeing, and after as they need. 
The rows are planted from 28 to 3G inches 
apart, depending somewhat upon the character 
of the land and the views of the cultivator. If 
the land is rich or very well manured, it will 
bear thicker planting than poor laud, or, if the 
grower desires very fine brush, he will plant 
thick. The seed is sown either in drills or in 
hills, about three times thicker than Indian corn. 
If in hills, plant 2 feet apart and thin out to 
seven or eight plants in a hill at the second hoe¬ 
ing. If in drills the plants should be thinned 
out to about five to the foot. The cultivation 
should be frequent and thorough, going through 
the rows with the cultivator as often as once a 
week, until the plants are too high to admit of 
the use of horse-power. The success of the 
crop depends very much upon this thorough 
cultivation, and with improved implements this 
may all be carried on with horse-power after the 
first weeding. Suckers will start from many 
of the plants, especially from the dwarf variety, 
and these must be removed by hand until the 
brush begins to show. When the seed is just 
past’ the milky state, it is time to bend over the 
tops. This is done at any hight that is conven¬ 
ient for the operator, but a foot or two from the 
lower end of the brush is the rule. Two rows 
are taken at a time, and the tops are bent over 
toward each other. Sometimes the tops are left 
at right angles to the main stalks, lapping upon 
each other, and this is called “ tabling.” When 
the brush is cut, it is laid upon this “table” 
for partial drying. Others bend the tops clear 
over at a sharp angle. Others, still, cut up 
the stalks near the root and in this case the 
brush is subsequently cut off vfith about four 
THE SPIXT CLOTBTTR. 
inches of the stalk, bundled, and laid up to dry 
under cover. Much of the value of the crop 
depends upon skill in drying. Some have sheds 
or barns especially for this purpose, somewhat 
upon the plan of a tobacco house, with ample 
facilities for ventilation. All that is wanted is 
protection from the rain, with a free circulation 
of air between the layers of brush. Many who 
have small crops build rail pens, arranging poles 
upon the interior for spreading the brush. 
The best brush is dried under cover, and should 
be of a bright greenish color, elastic, tough, and 
straight. If the brush has stood too long in the 
field, it is of a reddish brown, and brittle. The 
seeds are removed by a hatchel, made for the 
purpose, by the small cultivators, while the 
large planters use a horse-power machine. The 
seed being gathered before it is fully ripe, is apt 
to mould and ferment, unless spread upon a 
large floor and frequently stirred. This varies 
in price from fifty cents to three or four dollars a 
bushel. It is valuable as a feed for poultry, or it 
may be ground up with other grains and fed to 
swine and cattle. It is an important item in the 
profits of the crop, and should not be wasted. 
In raising seed to plant it should have full time 
to mature upon the stalk, and the growing crop 
should be kept at a distance from any Chinese 
sugar cane, or Imphee. Seed should be saved 
only from the toughest, finest, straiglitest brush, 
grown under these favorable circumstances. 
There are two varieties in common cultiva¬ 
tion, the tall and the dwarf. The latter is 
decidedly the preferred in the market. 
With good land and cultivation, about five or 
six hundred pounds of brush are grown to the 
acre. Sometimes a thousand pounds are reach¬ 
ed, but this is an exceptional crop. The 
market price varies from five to ten 
cents a pound. At the highest price, it 
will be seen that about fifty dollars an 
acre can be expected for the brush, and 
if we put the seed at half as much, it 
will only make seventy-five dollars as 
the gross receipts from an acre. The 
stalks are only valuable for manure. 
This crop can only be regarded as fairly 
remunerative, and should not be at¬ 
tempted except where the land is par¬ 
ticularly adapted to it. It is quite ex¬ 
tensively cultivated in the valleys of the 
Genesee, the Mohawk, and the Connec¬ 
ticut, and those persons in the West 
and South who are thinking of trying 
it on a large scale upon their river bot¬ 
toms, should visit these localities before 
entering upon the enterprize. It is 
estimated by a prominent dealer in the 
article that about 5,000 tons are raised in 
the whole country. The Shaker, or 
dwarf, variety is principally raised in 
the Mohawk and Connecticut valleys. 
A Bad Weed—The Spiny Clotbur. 
Last autumn, while riding in the vi¬ 
cinity of Cincinnati, we saw by the 
roadside a plant of the Spiny Clotbur. 
Having never before seen this far away 
from salt water, we w'ere as much sur¬ 
prised as we would have been to see 
sea-weed in the Ohio River; but the 
plant has found its way to other parts 
of the West, as is shown by a specimen 
since received from a correspondent in 
Michigan. Believing that every farmer 
should take an interest in his enemies 
as well as in his friends, both among 
plants and animals, we give an illus¬ 
tration which will enable this foreigner now 
on his westward travels to be recognized at 
once, and hope that all good cultivators will see 
that he does not reside long enough with them 
to be able to get his naturalization papers. 
Along the sea coast the plant is not very rare, 
and it seems to affect old fields and waste places. 
There is some doubt as to the native country of 
the Spiny Clotbur, Southern Russia and tropi¬ 
cal America dividing the honor between them. 
It is one of those plants that are remarkable 
for becoming naturalized in widely separated 
countries. The first recorded appearance of the 
plant is in 1818, about wdiich time it was found 
around Savannah and other southern cities; 
some years later it appeared in Pennsylvania, 
and in the course of time worked—or rather 
stole—its w r ay as far north as Massachusetts. 
It is now ou its western travels, and we believe 
that the localities w r e have given are further 
west than have been recorded before. But how 
does it travel ? For the most part, just as other 
travelers do, by public and private conveyance. 
Wherever ships discharge their cargoes and bal¬ 
last, there we find foreign plants, aud wher- 
