1868.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
257 
farmers, who are all the while putting more 
brains into the soil, which starts crops faster 
than bony fish. The Farmers’ Club is active, 
and Deacon Smith and Mr. Spooner keep talk¬ 
ing, and Seth Twiggs smokes out a good many 
errors in the course of the year. The'draining 
and the manure, and the new fools and seeds, 
tell their own story, and, as Jones says, “ every¬ 
body has a hankering arter land.” Farms, like 
putty, has ris. The Agriculturist subscription 
list has ris also, from one to forty, and real es¬ 
tate agents, if they were fair, would vote it a 
medal. Hoping the}’- will do the clean thing, I 
am, Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Hoolcertoum, Juno 15, 1868. 
More Turnips Wanted. 
The high price of ruta-bagas in our city mar¬ 
kets, the past spring, (two dollars a bushel at 
retail,) shows clearly that the supply is not 
equal to the demand. Ruta-bagas can be raised 
for twenty-five cents a bushel, and the round 
turnips, as a stolen crop, for less than ten cents. 
Farmers away from the large markets pay very 
little attention to this crop. It ought to have a 
place upon every farm where hogs and cattle are 
kept, without reference to city markets. Of 
course, if turnips go up to 75 cents or more a 
bushel, it will ordinarily pay better to sell them 
than to consume them upon the farm. But if 
prices are low, the farmer always has a good 
market at home. Most of the turnips raised in 
England are turned into beef, mutton, and wool, 
before they are sold. Our climate is not quite 
so favorable as the English for this crop, but we 
have never found any difficulty in growing sat¬ 
isfactory crops of all the varieties of turnips. 
They are not nearly so nourishing as the potato, 
but the yield is four or five times greater. They 
are valuable to feed to milch cows along with 
hay, Indian meal, and oil cake, good for fatten¬ 
ing bullocks and swine, and exceedingly profit¬ 
able for sheep, whether one is making mutton 
or wool, or raising lambs. We have found 
them valuable for home consumption, and do 
not like to be -without them, even when we have 
plenty of beets and carrots. The old method, in¬ 
herited from our English ancestors, no doubt, 
was to yard sheep at night for several weeks 
upon the piece of ground to be sown to this 
crop. Just before the 25th of July the ground 
was plowed and harrowed very thoroughly, and 
sown with wood ashes. The turnip seed was 
sown broadcast, and put in with a garden rake, 
or bush harrow. The crop had no cultivation, 
and yielded from four hundred to eight hundred 
bushels to the acre. The soil usually selected 
was a sod or a fresh clearing. Upon new 
ground, the turnip is usually of fine quality, and 
the yield large. The yarding of sheep is a 
good preparation of the soil, but the broadcast 
sowing is discarded by the best farmers. No 
crop pays better for sowing in drills, for thin¬ 
ning, and for frequent cultivation, until the 
leaves are in the way of the cultivator. The 
drills should be from fourteen inches to two feet 
apart, according to the size of the variety sown, 
and the object for which they are raised, with 
sufficient space left between the roots for hoeing. 
Some of the strap-leafed varieties make short 
leaves, and the “Cow-horn” grows quite high 
out of the ground with a long tap-root. These 
may be set in the thickest drills, and quite close 
together in the drill. Though the hoe is quite 
necessary in the first weeding of the crop, nearly 
all the cultivation may be done with the harrow 
and cultivator, and the aim should be to use horse¬ 
power as much as possible. This is essential to 
cheap turnips. After the leaves cover the 
ground, the crop may be “laid by.” The ruta¬ 
baga is much more solid than the common Avhite 
turnip, and requires a longer time to grow, 
and a richer soil. It is frequently sown in 
June, but the first week in July is early enough, 
on warm, loamy soils, especially if the crop is 
raised for food. This turnip is frequently 
grown upon ridges, and the manure placed 
in the center of the ridge, and covered with 
the plow. By the sea-shore it is a common 
practice to use rock-weed, freshly gathered, for 
this crop, bony fish, or the refuse after the oil 
is pressed out. Fish guano and superphosphate 
of lime are among the best manures for turnips, 
whether applied broadcast and harrowed in, or 
directly to the ridges. 500 pounds to the acre 
of the superphosphate or a half ton of the 
guano will be a good dressing. If the ruta¬ 
bagas are raised for market, they should not be 
allowed to grow too large. Roots from three to 
five inches in diameter sell much more readily 
than those of twice the size. They are easily kept 
in pits, or upon the surface of the ground, cov¬ 
ered with straw 7 and earth. The strap-leafed 
turnips are raised at very small cost, by sowing 
among corn at the last cultivating,—say the first 
week in August. If the corn is cut up by the roots 
early in September, the turnips have the ground 
the rest of the season, and frequently make 400 
or 500 bushels to the acre on good soil. Let us 
have cheap turnips this year. 
Haying in “ Catching Weather.” —Last 
year the weather was characterized as “ catch¬ 
ing,”—and from the beginning one would think 
this year had caught something, for it has been 
as showery and drizzly as the last along the 
sea-board. Almost anybody can make hay 
when the sun shines, but the problem may be 
presented to make hay when it does not shine. 
With the mowing machine, the tedder, horse- 
rakes, and hay caps, an active man of fair judg¬ 
ment may succeed, with a mere modicum of 
the direct heat of the sun. The principle is, 
continuous drying. The lack of sunshine must 
be made up by stirring, if the atmosphere is a 
drying one, and here a good tedder will be found 
most useful. Long exposure of clover to the 
hot sun is ruinous; the heads and leaves will 
fall off, and these constitute the best part. Grass 
containing clover should be dried rapidly until 
thoroughly wilted, and while still green and 
hot, cocked up. If it has a little sunshine 
when first cut, it will cure in ordinary catch¬ 
ing weather in the cocks, covered with hay 
caps, provided it can be opened out and 
shaken up now and then. The hay will be 
surprisingly green and good, and it will not 
require much labor to make hay in this way. 
—---*©-«- m a-O-ta—--a-- 
On His Last Legs.—('Sec next page.) 
The City of New York offers a market for al¬ 
most every thing, from the glittering gems that 
dazzle the eye in the show cases, to the misera¬ 
ble rags that the squalid poor cast off, and the 
more abject still pick from the gutters; even the 
street sweepings bring money. If the fame 
of some wonderful exploit on the turf or trot¬ 
ting course makes a horse valuable, here he 
finds a buyer, and $5,000 or $30,000 will not 
long stand between the fancier and the object 
of his ambition. From such transactions as 
these, the trade in horse flesh drops off rapidly 
until we reach the more modest figures of $500 
to $1,000 for good animals or for pairs of 
horses, and comparatively few are sold ^cven at 
these figures, the majority of sound horses sell¬ 
ing at perhaps $150 to $200 apiece, or $300 to 
$500 per pair. Still there is ever a ready mar¬ 
ket for horses, no matter how crippled and 
broken-down. It is this trade which brings out 
that phase of human nature which renders horse 
dealing, as a profession, of such disrepute. In 
fact, the rarest development of the peculiar 
characteristics which this calling seems to elicit, 
is to be found where the very poorest class¬ 
es of horses are brought for sale. Our artist 
was so struck with the scenes and the surround¬ 
ings of an up-town horse market, that lie 
quietly employed his pencil in portraying them. 
They have a little the air of caricatures, but this 
is owing to the difficulty of otherwise vividly 
presenting the reality. The auctioneer and his 
associates who manage the thing would feel 
greatly incensed should we impute to them other 
than the most high-toned sense of honor in their 
way,—and we do not. We owe them thanks 
for the opportunity we have of exhibiting this 
interesting stage of horse life. The pampered 
pet, the pride of the park drive, the faithful ser¬ 
vant and drudge, has served many masters, and 
a broken-winded, spavined, knock-kneed crip¬ 
ple, he is brought once more to the auction 
block. He has passed through 12 to 20 years 
of varying and eventful scenes. Soon will fol¬ 
low the last—the drop-scene. Now for the last 
time he passes under the red flag, and “going 
—gone—” is enforced by the auctioneer’s ham¬ 
mer, and followed by a change of masters. 
The central group needs no further explana¬ 
tion. No. 2 represents the test applied to cart¬ 
horses. The wheels of a truck being blocked, 
it is loaded with men and dragged up and down 
the sandy way. No. 3, an animal with a fine 
Roman cast of countenance, not recently shod, 
nor suffering from too high feed, comes up, going 
a little lame. “ There’s nothin’ the matter o’ 
this boss, Mister, but a werry slight blemish on 
his nigh fore-leg; otherwise lie’s a perfec’ lioss.” 
No. 4. “Here, gentlemen, is a splendid animal 
for the saddle, and no doubt a good feeder.” Any 
one who doesn’t believe it is at liberty to offer 
him a peck of oats. We suppose No. 7 must 
exhibit unmistakable marks of having seen bet¬ 
ter days, for the word comes from the stand, 
“ Gem’en, this ’ere Shetland belonged to a young 
lady on 5th Ah-vner, and she sold him ’cause 
she was goin’ to You-rope.” No. 8 is announced 
as “a good stepper,” and exhibits his accom¬ 
plishments to the slight inconvenience of by¬ 
standers. The public appeal having' failed to 
bring the desired response, or as a personal fa¬ 
vor, No. 9 is offered at private sale, and at a 
bargain. “Well, I tell you what, Mister, there 
is one great beauty about that lioss—an that is, 
he's all together .” The portraits already given 
would be incomplete without those on either 
side of the central picture, Nos. 5 and G. 
The poor horse endures this old age of suffer¬ 
ing and toil because his value is solely in his 
labor. In Europe, the societies for preventing 
cruelly to animals have for years been endeav¬ 
oring to remedy this evil, by encouraging the 
consumption of horse flesh as food. This is 
now so far on the increase in some European 
cities, that it really seems as if there might be a 
market for the flesh of old horses. It is said 
that old, well-fattened animals are much ten¬ 
derer and better than young ones, and there 
is really no reason, except in our prejudices, 
why we who eat swine might not eat horses. 
