362 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
far as one bushel of corn, as usually fed, and they leave the 
land in the best possible condition, without replowing for any 
crop or small grain. 
But it is especially to the farmer of but few acres, who wishes, 
nevertheless, to fatten as much stock as possible, in order 
to keep up the fertility of his soil, that root crops are particu¬ 
larly valuable. Upon a farm of 160 acres, and less, half 
may be devoted to grass and hay, twenty acres to root crops— 
beets, ruta bagas, turnips, carrots, parsnips and potatoes, as fob 
lows: ten acres to beets, five acres to ruta bagas and turnips, 
three acres to potatoes, and two acres to carrots and parsnips; 
the latter two to be fed to horses and milch cows, twenty acres 
to wheat or barley, twenty acres to corn, and twenty acres to 
oats or rye. 
In the rotation here mentioned, the manure should be ap¬ 
plied to the corn land and the sod before trenching for the root 
crop. 
Within five years I should not be afraid to guarantee, if all 
the crops, except wheat, barley and potatoes, were fed to stock, 
and the manure saved and faithfully applied to the land, that 
the produce of the farm, in each ordinary season thereafter, 
would be, starting with good arable prairie land, faithfully 
worked, 160 to 200 tons hay, or its equivalent in meadow, 15,- 
000 bushels beets, 5,000 bushels ruta bagas and turnips, 600 to 
900 bushels potatoes, and 800 bushels each of carrots and pars¬ 
nips. This would give nearly 22,000 bushels of roots, besides 
potatoes, which should produce 50,000 pounds of beef, mutton 
and pork, annually, which, at five cents per pound, would 
amount to $2,500 per annum, as the product of the twenty 
acres, besides the value of the potato crop. 
But it is to the villager, or occupant of from one to five 
acres, that the cultivatioh of root crops are especially valuable. 
We have shown the quantities of the different root crops that 
can be raised per acre, and they are not fancy sketches by any 
means, but are below what are often raised. I myself assisted, 
when a mere boy, in the cultivation of two-thirds of an acre 
of ruta bagas, in 1839, the product of which was 1,300 bush- 
