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IN THE

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sides STATES OF AMERICA;

THE Fina OF LAND, OF LABOUR, OF FOOD, OF RAIMENT ; OF
THE EXPENSES OF HOUSE-KEEPING AND OF THE USUAL MAN-
NER OF LIVING } OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE PEO-
LE} AND, OF THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE COUNTRY; CIVIL; .
ae AND RELIGIOUS.

IN THREE PARTS

| *
BY WILLIAM’COBBETT, (13 \°**

a us PART I.

CONTAINING, J. A DESCRIPTION OF THE FACE OF THE COUNTRY,
THE CLIMATE, THE SEASONS AND THE SOIL} THE FACTS
BEING TAKEN FROM THE AUTHOR’S DAILY NOTES DURING A
WHOLE YEAR. II. 4N ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S AGRICUL-
YURAL EXPERIMENTS IN THE CULTIVATION OF THE RUTA
BAGA, OR RUSSIA, OR SWEDISH, TURNIP, WHICH AFFORD

PROGF OF WHAT THE CLIMATE ANDS ARE. ’ k
rat Bi Con Hp

o + » $
vs :
7 j BRT ae { ma fe
q PLN is i we
Cay, tal r Aor
) NEW-YORK: Of Washins,
: PRINTED FOR THE ‘AUTHOR BY eriox AND KINGSLAND,

ca ‘No. 15 Cedar-Street,

Teeeveseers voce

13818, %

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW-YORK, ss.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That-on the sixth day of
(L. 8.) June, in the forty-second year of the Independence of

the United States of America. Wintiam Copsert, of
the said District, has deposited in this office the title of a book,
the right whereof he claims as proprietor in the words follow-
ing, to wit:

“ A Vear’s Residence in the United’States of America ; treating
of the Face of the Country, the Soil, the Products, the Mode of
Cultivating the Land, the Prices of Land, of Labour, of Food,
of Raiment ; of the Expenses of House-keeping, and of the usual
manner of Living ; of the Manners and Customs of the People ;
and, of the Instiiutions of the Country, Civil, Political and Re-
ligious. In three Parts. By William Cobbeit. Pari 1. Con-
taining, 1. A Description of ihe Face of the Country, the Climate, —
the Seasons and the Soil, the Facts being taken from the Author's
daily Notes during awhole Year. UW. An Account of the Author's
Agricultural Experiments in the Cultivation of the Ruta Baga,
or Russia, or Swedish, Turnip, which afford proof of what the
Climate and Soil are.”

In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United
States, entitled “‘ An Act for the encouragement of Learning,
by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the
authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein
mentioned.” And also to an Act, entitled ‘“ an Act, supple-
mentary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of
Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books
to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times
therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the
arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other

orints.”
' JAMES DILL,
Clerk of the Southern Disirict of New- Yori.

CHAP. I.

CHAP, Il.

CONTENTS OF PART I.

Description of the Situation and Extent of
Long-Island, and also of the Face of the
Country, and an Account of the Climate,
Seasons and Soil, - - - - - 7 - 7 7
Rura Baca. Culture, Mode of Preserving,
and Uses of the Ruta Baga, sometimes called
the Russia, and sometimes the Swedish, Tur-
PE A aR ae OR oe Se GC ar l rom M

ane Page
GENERAL PREFACE TO THE THREE PARTS, - -

5

11

70

GENERAL PREFACE
TO THE

THREE PARTS.

—_—

i. Turovucuout the whole of this work it is my
intention to number the paragraphs, from one to the
end of each Parr. This renders the business of
reference more easy than it can be rendered by any
mode in my power to find out ; and, easy reference
saves a great deal of paper and print, and also,
which ought to be more valuable, a great deal of
time, of which an industrious man has never any to
spare. To desire the reader to look at paragraph
such a number of sucha part, will frequently, as he
will find, save him both money and labour ; for
without this power of reference, the paragraph, or
the substance of it, would demand being repeated
in the place, where the reference would be point-
ed out to him.

2. Amongst all the publications, which I have
yet seen on the subject of the United States, as a
country to live in, and especially to farm in, I have
never yet observed one that conveyed to English-
men any thing like a correct notion of the matter.
Some writers of Travels inthese States have jolted
along in the stages from place to place, have loung-
ed away their time with the idle part of their own
countrymen, and, taking every thing different from
what they left at home for the effect of ignorance,
and every thing not servile to be the effect of in-
solence, have described the country as unfit for a
eivilized being to reside in. Others, coming with

6 GENERAL PREFACE ©

a resolution to find every thing better than at home,
and weakly deeming themselves pledged to find
climate, soil and all blessed by the effects of free-
dom, have painted the country as a perfect para-
dise ; they have seen nothing sir blooming» or-
chards and smiling faces.

3. The account, which I shall give, shall be that
of actual experience. 1 will say what I know and
what I have seen and what I have done. I mean to
give an account of a YEAR’S RESIDENCE, ten months
in this Island and two months in Pennsylvania,’ in
which I went back to the first ridge of mountains.
In the course of the THREE Parts, of which this
work will consist, each part making a small vo-
lume, every thing which appears to me useful to
persons intending to come to this country shall be
communicated ; but more especially that which
may be useful to farmers ; because, as to such mat-
ters, L have ample experience. Indeed, this is the
main thing ; for this is really and truly a country of
farmers. Here Governors, Legislators, Presidents,
all are farmers. A farmer here is not the poor de-
pendent wretch that a Yeomanry-Cavalry man is,
or that a Treason-Jury manis. | A farmer here de-
pends on nobody but himself and on his own proper
means ; and, ifhe be not at his ease, and even rich,
it a’ be his own fault. .

. Tomake men clearly see what they may do
in ay situation of life, one of the best modes, if not
the very best is, to give them, in detail, an account
of what one has done one’s-self in that same situa-
tion, and how and when and whereone has done it.
This, as far as relates to farming, and house keep-
ing in the country, is the mode that I shall pursue.
I shall give an account of what I have done; and,
while this will convince < any good farmer,:or any
man of tolerable means, that ike may, if he will, do
the same, it will give him an idea of the climate,
soil, crops, &c. a thousand times more neat and

TO THE THREE PARTS. 7%

correct than could be conveyed to his mind by any
general description unaccompanied with actual ex-
perimental accounts.

5. As the expressing of this intention may, per-
haps, suggest to the reader to ask, how it is that
much can be known on the subject of Farming by
aman, who, for thirty-six out of fifty-two years of
his life-has been a Soldier or a Political Writer,
and who, of course, has spent so large a part of his
time in garrisons and in great cities, I will beg leave
to satisfy this natural curiosity before-hand.

6. Early habits and affections seldom quit us
while we have vigour of mind left. I was brought
up under afather whose talk was chiefly about his
garden and his fields, with regard to which he was
famed for his skill and his exemplary neatness.
From my very infancy, from the age of six years,
when I climbed up the side of a steep sand rock,
and there scooped me outa plot four feet square to
make mea garden, and the soil for which I carried
upin the bosom of my little blue smock-frock, or
hunting shirt, I have never lost one particle of my
passion for these healthy and rational and heart-
cheering pursuits, in which every day presents some-
thing new, in which the spirits are never suffered
to flag, and in which, industry, skill and care are
sure to meet with their due reward. Ihave never,
for any eight months together, during my whole
life, been without a garden. So sure are we to
overcome difficulties where the heart and mind
are bent on the thing to be obtained!

7. The beautiful plantation of American Trees
round my house at Botley, the seeds of which
were sent me, at my request, from Pennsylvania,
in 1806, and some of which are now nearly forty
feet high, all sown and planted by myself, will, I
hope, long remain as a specimen of my perseve-
rance in this way. During my whole life I have
been a gardener. There is no part of the busi-

GS GENERAL PREFACE

ness, which, first or last, I have ct performed
with my own hands. And, as to a, I owe very
little to books, except to that of Turt; for I never
read a good one in my life, except a French book,
called the Manuel du Jerdinier. |

8. As to farming, I was bred at the ploliglis tail,
and in the Hop- -Gardens of Farnham in Surrey, my
native place, and which spot, as it so happened,
is the neatest in England, and, I believe, in the
whole world. All there is a garden. The neat
culture of the hop extends its influence to the
fields round about. Hedges cut with sheers and
every other mark of skill and care strike the eye
at Farnham, and become fainter and fainter as you
go from it in every direction. I have had, be-
sides, great experience in farming for several years
of late; for, one man will gain more knowledge in
a year than another will in a life. It is the taste
for the thing that really gives the knowledge.

9. To this taste, produced in me by a desire
to imitate a father, whom | ardently loved, and to
whose every word I listened with admiration, |
owe no smail part of my happiness, for a greater
portion of which very few men ever had to be
grateful to God. These pursuits, innocent in
themselves, instructive in their very nature, and
always tending to preserve health, have beena
constant, a never-failing source, of recreation with
me; and, which I count amongst the greatest of
their benefits and blessings, they have always, in
my house, supplied the place of the card-table,
the dice-box, the chess-board and the lounging
bottle. Time never hangs on the hands of him,
who delights in these pursuits, and who has books
on the subject to read. Even when shut up with-
in the walls of a prison for having complained that
Englishmen had been flogged in the heart of Eng-
land under a guard of German Bayonets and Sa-
bres; even then, I found in these pursuits a

TO THE THREE PARTS. g

source of pleasure inexhaustible. To that of the
whole of our English books on these matters I
then added the reading of all the valuable French
‘Books; and I then, for the first time, read that
Book of all Books on Husbandry, the work of |
Jeruro Ture, to the principles of whom I owe
more than to all my other reading and all my ex-
perience, and of which principles I hope to find
time to give a sketch, atleast, in some future Parr
of this work.

10. I wish it to be observed, that, in any thing
which I may say, during the course of this work,
though truth will compel me to state facts, which
will, doubtless, tend to induce farmers to leave
England for America, I advise no one so to do.
[ shall set down in writing nothing but what is
strictly true. 1 myself am bound to England for
life. My notions of allegiance to country ; my
great and anxious desire to assist in the restoration
of her freedom and happiness ; my opinion that I
possess, in some small degree, at any rate, the
power to render such assistance ; and, above all
other considerations, my unchangeable attachment
to the people of England, and especially those who
have so bravely struggled for our rights: these
bind me to England; but, I shall leave others to
judge and to act for themselves. }

Wm. COBBETT.

North Hempstead, Long
Island, 21 April, 1818.

A

YEAR’S RESIDENCE, &c.

CHAP. I..

Description of the Situation, and Extent of Long
Island, and also of the Face of the Country, and
an account of the Climate, Seasons and Soil.

11. LONG ISLAND is situated in what may be
called the middle climate of that part of the United
States, which, coast wise, extends from Boston to
the Bay of Chesapeake. Farther to the South
the cultivation is chiefly by negroes, and farther
to the north than Boston is too cold and arid to be
worth much notice, though, doubtless, there are
to be found in those parts good spots of land and
good farmers. Boston is about 200 miles to the
North of me, and the Bay of Chesapeake about
the same distance to the South. In speaking of
the climate and seasons, therefore, an allowance
must be made, of hotter or colder, earlier or later,
in a degree proportioned to those distances ; be-
cause I can speak positively only of the very spot,
at which I have resided. But, this is a matter of
very little consequence ; seeing that every part
has its seasons first or last. All the difference is,
that, in some parts of the immense space of which
I have spoken, there is a little more summer than
in other parts. The same crops will, | believe,
grow in them all.

eo sai
; a e
| i
12 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part i.

12. The situation of Long Island is this: it is
about 130 miles long, and, on an average about
8 miles broad. It extends in length from the Bay
of the City of New-York to within a short distance
of the State of Rhode Island. One side of it is
against the sea, the other side looks across an arm —
of the sea into a part of the State of New-York
(to which Long Island belongs) and into a part of
the State of Connecticut. At the end nearest the
city of New-York it is separated from the site of
that city by a channel so narrow as to be crossed
by a Steam-Boat in a few minutes ; and this boat,
with another near it, impelled by a team of horses,
which work in the boat, form the mode of con-
veyance from the Island to the city, for horses,
mages and every thing else.

The Island is divided into three counties,
King’s county, Queen’s county, and the county ot
Suffolk. King’s county takes off the end next
New-York city for about 13 miles up the Island ;
Queen’s county cuts off another slice about thirty
miles further up ; and all the rest is the county of
Suffolk. These counties are divided into town-
ships. And, the municipal government of Justices
of the Peace, Sheriffs, Constables, &c. is in nearly
the English way, with such differences as I shall no-
tice in the Second Part of this work.

14. There is a ridge of hills which runs from one
end of the Island to the other. The two sides are
flats, or, rather, very easy and imperceptible
slopes towards the sea. ‘There are no rivers, or
rivulets, except here and there a little run into a
bottom which lets in the sea water for a mile or two
as it were to meet the springs. Dryness is, there-
fore, a great characteristic of this Island. At the
place where I live, which is in Queen’s county,
and very nearly the: middle of the Island, cross-
wise, we have no water, except in a well seventy
feet deep, and from the clouds ; yet, we never ex-

Chap. I. CLIMATE SEASONS, &c, 13

perience a want of water. A large rain water cis-
tern to take the run from the house, and a duck
pond to take that from the barn, afford an ample
supply ; and, I can truly say, that, as to the article
of water, I never was situated to please me so well
in my life before. The rains come about once in
fifteen days ; they come in abundance for about
twenty-four hours ; and then all is fair and all is
dry again immediately. Yet here and there, espe-
clally on the hills, there are ponds, as they call them
here ; but, in England, they would be called lakes
from their extent as well as from their depth.
These, with the various trees which surround them,
are very beautiful indeed.
~ 15. The farms are so many plots originally
scooped out of woods ; though in King’s and Queen’s
counties the land is generally pretty much depriv-
ed of the woods, which, asin every other part of
America that I have seen, are beautiful beyond all
description. ‘The Walnut of two or three sorts ;
the Plane ; the Hickory, Chestnut, Tulip Tree, Ce-
dar, Sassafras, Wild Cherry aes 60 feet
high); more than fifty sorts of Oaks; and many
other trees, but especially the Flowering Locust,
or Accasia, which, in my opinion, surpasses all
other trees, and some of which, in this Island, are
of a very great height and girt. The orchards
constitute a feature of great beauty. Every farm
has its orchard, and, in general, of cherries as well
as of apples and pears. Of the cultivation and crops
of these, I shall speak in another Part of the work.
16. There is one great draw-back to all these
beauties ; namely, the fences ; and, indeed, there is
another with us South of England people ; namely,
the general (for there are many exceptions) slo-
venliness about the homesteads and particularly
about the dwellings of labourers. Mr. Birxeecx
complains of this ; and, indeed, what a contrast
with the homesteads and cottages, which he left be-
2

14 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part: ¥;

hind him near that exenaplary spot, Guildford in
Surrey! Both blots are, however, easily accounted
for.

17. The fences are of post and rail. This anaes
in the first place, from the abundance of timber that
men knew not how to dispose of. It is now become
an affair of great expense in the populous parts of
the country ; and, that it might, with great advan-
tage and perfect ease, be got rid of, I shall clearly
show in another part of my work.

18. The dwellings and gardens and little out hou-
ses of labourers, which form so striking a feature
of beauty in England, and especially in Kent, Sus-
sex, Surrey, and Hampshire, and which constitute
a sort of fairy-land, when compared with those of
the labourers in France, are what I, for my part,
most feel the want of seeing upon Long Island. In-
stead of the neat and warm little cottage, the yard,
cow-stall, pig-sty, hen-house, all in miniature, and
the garden, nicely laid out and the paths bordered
with flowers, while the cottage door 13 crowned
with a garland of roses or honey-suckle: instead
of these, we here see the labourer content with a
shell of boards, while all around him hes as barren
as the sea-beach ; though the natural earth would
send melons, the finest in the world, creeping round
his door, and though there is no English shrub, or
Power, which will not grow and flourish here. This
want of attention in such cases is hereditary from
the first settlers.. They found land so plenty, that
they treated smail spots with contempt. Besides,
the example of neatness was wanting. There was
no gentlemen’s gardens, kept as clean as drawing-
rooms with grass as even as a carpet. From en-
deavouring to imitate perfection men arrive at me-
diocrity ; and, those who never have seen, or
heard of perfection, in these matters, will naturally
be slovens.

19. Yet, notwithstanding these blots, as { deem

Chap. I. _ CLIMATE, SEASONS, &e. 15

them, the face of the country, in summer, is very
fine. From December to May, there is not a speck
of green. No green grass and turnips and wheat
and rye and rape, as in England. The frost comes
and sweeps all vegetation and verdant existence
from the face of the earth. The wheat and rye
live ; but, they lose all their verdure. Yet the
state of things in June, is, as to crops, and fruits,
much about what it isin England; for, when things
do begin to grow, they grow indeed ; and the gen-
eral harvest for grain (what we call corn) is a full
month earlier than in the South of England !

20. Having now given a sketch of the. face of
the country, it only remains for me to speak in
this place of the Climate and Seasons, because |
shall sufficiently describe the Soil, when I come
to treat of my own actual experience of it. I do
not like, in these cases, general descriptions. In-
deed, they must be very imperfect; and, there-
fore, I will just give a copy of a journal, kept by
myself, from the 5th of May, 1817, to the 20th
of April, 1818. This, it appears to me is the best
way of proceeding ; for, then, there can be no de-
ception ; and, therefore, I insert it as follows :

1817.
May 5. Landed at New-York.

6. Went over to Long Island. Very fine day,
warm as May in. England. The Peach
trees going out of bloom. Plum trees in
full bloom.

7. Cold, sharp, East wind, just hike that
which makes the old debauchees in Lon-
don shiver and shake.

8. A little frost in the night, and a warm day.

9. Cold in the shade and hot in the sun.

40. The weather has been dry for some time.
The grass is only beginning to grow a
little.

16

May 11.
12.
13.

14,

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part f.

Heavy Thunder and rain in the nigit,
and all this day.

Rain till noon. Then warm and beautiful.
Warm, fine day. Saw, in a garden, let-
tuces, onions, carrots and parsnips, just
come up out of the ground.

Sharp, drying wind. People travel with
great coats to be guarded against the
morning and evening air.

Warr and fair. The farmers are begin-
ning to plant their Indian corn.

Dry wind. Warm in the sun. Cherry
trees begin to come out in bloom. The
Oaks show no green yet. The sas-
safras in flower; or whatever else it is
called. It resembles the elder flower
a good deal.

Dry wind. Warmer than yesterday. An
English April morning, that is to say, a
sharp April morning, and a June day.
Warm and fine. Grass pusheson. Saw
some Lucern ina warm spot, 8 inches
high. )

Rain all day. Grass grows apace. People

. plant potatoes.

30.

ak.

Fine and warm. A good cow sells, with
a calf by her side, for 45 dollars. Steer
two years old 20 dollars. A working ox,
five years old, 40 dollars.

Fine and warm day; but the morning
and evening coldish. The cherry trees
in full bloom, and the pear trees nearly
the same. Oats, sown in April, up, and
look extremely fine.

. Fine and warm.—Apple trees fast com-

ing into bloom. Oak buds breaking.

. Fine and warm.—Things grow away.—

Saw kidney beans up and looking pretty
well. Saw some beets coming up. Not

cf
CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 17
a sprig of Parsley to be had for love or

money. Whatimprovidence! Saw some
cabbage plants up and in the fourth leaf.

. Rain at night and ail day to-day. Apple

trees in full bloom, and cherry bloom
falling off.

25. Fine and warm.

to

26. Dry coldish wind, but hot sun. The grass

has pushed on most furiously. |

. Dry wind. Spudded up acerner of ground

and sowed (inthe natural earth) cucumbers
and melons. Just the time they tell me.

. Warm and fair.
- Cold wind ; but the sun warm. No fires

in parlours now, except now-and-then,
in the mornings and evenings.

. Fine and warm.—Apples have dropped

their blossoms. And now the grass, the
wheat, the rye and every thing, which
has stood the year, or winter through,
appear to have overtaken their like in
Old England.

. Coldish morning and evening.
June 1.

Fine warm day ; but saw a man, in the
evening covering something in a garden.
It was kidney-beans, and he feared a frost?!
To be sure they are very tender things.

I have had them nearly lalled m Eng-
land, by June frosts.

2 Bain and warm.—The Oaks and all the

trees, except the Flowering Locusts, be-
xin to look greenish.

. Fine and warm.—The Indian corn is

generally come up; but looks yellow in

consequence.of the cold nights and little

frosts.—N. B. I ought here to describe

to my English Readers what this same

Indian Corn is.—The Americans call it

Lorn, by way of eminence, and wheat,
Ox

2
a

fg

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I.

rye, barley and oats, which we confound
under the name of corn, they conivead
under the name of grain. ‘The Indian
Corn, in its ripe seed state, consists of
an ear, which is in the shape of a spruce

fir apple. The grains, each of which is

about the bulk of the largest marrowfat
pea, are placed all round a stalk, which
goes up the middle, and this little stalk,
to which the seeds adhere, is called the

_ Corn Cob. Some of these ears (of which

from 1 to 4 grow upon a plant) are more
than a foot long; and I have seen many,
each of which weighed more than ezgh-
teen ounces, avoirdupois weight. They are
Jong or short, heavy or light, according
to the land and the culture. I was ata
Tavern, in the village of North Hemp-
stead, last fall (of 1817) where I had
just read, in the Courier, English news-
paper, of a Noble Lord, who had been:
sent on his travels to France at ten’years
of age, and who, from his high-blooded
ignorance of vulgar things, | suppose,
had swallowed a whole ear of corn, which,
as the news-paper told us, had well-nigh
choaked the Noble Lord. The Landlord
bad just been showing me some of his
fine ears of Corn; and I took the paper
out of my pocket, and read the para-
graph: ‘* What!” said he, ‘swallow a
‘‘whole ear of corn at once! No wonder
‘«that they have swallowed up poor Old
‘‘John Bulls substance.” After a hearty
laugh, we explained to him, that it must
have been wkeat or barley. Then he
said, and very justly, that the lord must -
have been a much greater fool thana
hog is: The plant of the Indian Corn,

Chap. I.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 19

grows, upon an average, to about eight
feet high, and sends forth the most beau-
tiful leaves, resembling the broad leaf of
the water flag. It is planted in hills, or
rows, so that the plough can go between
the standing crop. Its stalks and leaves
are the best of fodder, if carefully stack-
ed; and its grain is good for every thing.
It is eaten by man and beast in all the
various shapes of whole corn, meal,
cracked, and every other way that can
be imagined. It is tossed down to hogs,
sheep, cattle, in the whole ear. The
two former thresh for themselves, and
the latter eat Cob and all. It is eaten,
and is a very delicious thing, in its half-
ripe, or milky state: and these were the
‘ears of corn,’ which the Pharisees
complained of the Disciples for plucking
off to eat on the Sabbath Day ; for, how
were they to eat wheat ears, unless after
the manner of the ‘‘ Noble Lord’’ above
mentioned ? Besides, the Indian Corn is
« native of Palestine. The French, who
doubtless, brought it originally from the
Levant, call it Turkish Corn. The Lo-

.custs, that John the Baptist lived on,

were not (as I used to wonder at when
a boy) the noxious vermin that devoured
the land of Egypt ; but, the bean, which
comes in the long pods borne by the
three-thornec Locust tree, and of which
IT have an abundance here. The wild-
honey was the honey of wild bees; and
the hollow trees here contain swarms of
them. The trees are cut, sometimes,
in winter, and the part containing the
swarm, brought and placed near the house~
1 saw this lately in Pennsylvania.

15.
16.

gi
CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I.

Fine rain. Began about ten o’clock.

- Rain nearly all day.
. Fine and warm. Things grow surpris-

ingly.

. Fine and warm. Rather cold at night.
. Hot.
. Rain all day. The wood green, and so

beautiful! The leaves look so fresh and
delicate ! But the Flowering Locust, on-
ly begins to show leaf. It will, by-and-
by, make up, by its beauty, for its shy-
ness at present.

. Fine warm day. The cattle are up to

their eyes in grass.

-Fime warm day. Like the very, very

finest days, in England in June.

. Fine day. And, when I say fine, I mean

really fine. Not a cloud in the sky.

.Fine and hot. About as hot as the hot-

test of our English July weather in com-
mon years. lLucern 2 1-2 feet high.

- Fine and hot; but we have always a

breeze when it is hot, which! did not for-
merly find in Pennsylvania. This arises,
I suppose, from our nearness to the sea.
Rain all day.

Fine, beautiful day. Never saw such
fine weather. Not a morsel of dirt. The
ground sucks .up all. I walk about and
work im the land in shoes made of Deer
skin. They are dressed white, like
breeches-leather. I began to leave off my
coat to-day, and do not expect to put it on
again till October. My hat is a white
chip, with broad brims. Never better
health.

.Fine day. The partridges (miscalled

quails) begin to sit. The orchard full of
birds’ nests ; and, amongst others, a dove
is sitting on her eggs in an apple tree.

Chap. I.

June 18.

19.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Qh

Fine day.—Green peas fit to gather in
pretty early gardens, though only of the
common Hotspur sort.—May Duke cher-
ries begin to be ripe.

Fine day.—But, now comes my alarm!
The Musquitoes, and, still worse, the
common horse fly, which used to plague
us so in Pennsylvania, and which were
the only things I ever disliked belonging
to the climate of America. Musquitoes
are bred in stagnant water, of which here
is none. Flies are bred in filth, of which
none shall be near me, as long as 1 can
use ashovel and a broom. They will fol-
low fresh meat and fish. Have neither ;
or be very careful. I have this day put
all these precautions in practice; and,
now let us see the result.

. Fine day.—Carrots and Parsnips, sown

on the 3d and 4th instant, all up, and in
rough leaf! Onions up. ‘The whole gar-
den green in 18 days from the sowing.

. Very hot.—Thunder and heavy Rain at

night.

. Fine day. —May Duke Cherries ripe.

. Hot and close. Distant thunder.

. Fine day.

.Fine day. White heart and Black heart

cherries getting ripe.

. Rain. Planted out cucumbers and me-

lons. I find I am rather late.

27. Fine day.

28. Fine day. Gathered Cherries for drying

for winter use.

. Fine day.
. Rain all night. People are planting out

their cabbage for the winter crop.

.Fine day. Bought 20 bushels of English

salt for halfa dollar a bushel !

sie

oo

=)

30.

il.

12.

13.

CLIMATE, SEASONS,NC. Part I.

. Fine day.
. Fine day. |
. Fine day. Carrots, sown 3d June, 3 inch-

es high.

Very hot day. ‘No flres yet.
Fine hot day. Currants ripe. Oats in
haw. Rye nearly ripe. Indian Corn
two feet high. Hay-making nearly done.

. Rain and thunder early in the morning.
.Fime hot day. Wear no waistcoat now,

exceptin the morning and evening.

. Fine hot day. Apples to make puddings

and pies ; but our house-keeper does not
know how to make an apple pudding. |
She puts the pieces of apple amongst the
batter! She has not read Peter Pindar.
Fine hot day.—I work in the land morn-
ing and evening and write in the day, in
a north room.—The dress is now become
a very convenient, or, rather, a very lit-
tle inconvenient, affair. Shoes, trowsers,
shirt and hat. No plague of dressing and
undressing !

Fine hot day in morning, but began to
grow dark in the afternoon. A sort of
haze came over. . .

Very hot day. ‘The common black cher-
ries, the little red honey-cherries, all
ripe now, and falling and rotting by the
thousands of pounds weight. But this
place which I rent is remarkable for a-
bundance of cherries. Some early peas,
sown in the second week in June, fit for
the table. This is thirty days from the
time of sowing.—Vo jlies yet ! No Mus-
guitoes !

Hot and heavy, like the pleading of a
Quarter-Sessions lawyer. No breeze to-
day, which is rarely the case.

Chap. If.

July 14.

15.

‘16.

LY:

22.

CLIMATE, 3EASONS, &c. 23

Fine day. The Indian Corn four feet
high.

Finé day. We eat Turnips, sown on the
2d of June. Early cabbages (a gift) sown
in May.

Fine hot day. Fine young onions, sown
on the 8th of June.

Fine hot day. Harvest of wheat, rye,
oats and barley, halfdone. But, indeed,
what is it to do, when the weather does
so much!

- Fine hot day.
. Rain all day.
. Fine hot day and some wind. All dry

again as completely as if it had not rained
for a year.

. Fine hot day ; but heavy rain at night.—

Fliesa few. Not more than in England.
My son John, who has just returned from

‘Pennsylvania, says they are as great tor-

ments there as ever. Ata friend’s house
(a farm-house) there, two quarts of flies
were caught in one window in one day! I

do not believe that there are two quarts

in all my premises. But, then, I cause
all wash and slops to be carried forty
yards from the house. I suffer no peel-
ings or greens or any rubbish to lie near

‘the house. I suffer no fresh meat to re-

main more than one day fresh in the
house. | proscribe all fish. Do not suf-
fer a dog to enter the house. . Keep all
pigs ata distance of sixty yards. And
sweep all round about once every week
at least.

Fine hot day.

23. Fine hot day. Sowed Buckwheat in a

piece of very poor ground.

24

July 24. Fine hot day. Harvest (for grain) near-.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c, Part i.

ly over. The main part of the wheat, &c.

is put into Barns, which are very large |
and commodious. Some they put into |
small ricks, or stacks, out in the fields, |
and there they stand, without any thatch- |

ing, “till they are wantedto be taken in |
during the winter, and, sometimes they |
remain out for a whole year. Nothing |

can prove more clearly than this fact the
great difference between this climate and

that of England, where, as every body —

knows, such stacks would be mere heaps
of muck by January, if they were not,

long and long before that time, carried |
clean off the farm by the wind. The crop |

is sometimes threshed out in the field by

the feet of horses, as in the South of |
France. It is sometimes carried into the |

barns’-floor, where three or four horses,
or oxen, going a-breast tramples out the
erain as the sheaves, or swarths are
brought in. And this explains to us the
humane precept of Moss, ‘ not to muz-
zle the ox as he treadeth out the grain,”
which we country people in England can-
not make out. I used to be puzzled, too,

in the story of Ruru, to imagine how

Boaz could be busy amongst his threshers
in the height of harvest.—The weather
is so fine, and the grain so dry, that, when
the wheat and rye are threshed by the
flail, the sheaves are barely untied, laid
upon the floor, receive a few raps, and
are then tied up, clean threshed, for
straw, without the order of the straws be-
ing in the least changed! The ears and
butts retain their places in the sheaf, and
the band that tied the sheaf before ties

Chap. i.¢

* i” ; 5 At)
PA sh
oR
CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 25

it again. The straw is as bright as bur-
nished gold. Nota speck in it. These
facts will speak volumes to an English

_ farmer, who willsee with what ease work

9
(os)

must be done in such a country.

. Fine hot day. Early pea, mentioned be-
fore, harvested, in forty days from the
sowing. JVot more flies than in England.

. Fine broiling day. The Indian Corn

grows away now, and has, each plant, at
least a tumbler full of water standing in the
sockets of its leaves, while the sun seems
as if it would actually burn one. Yet we
have a breeze ; and, under these fine sha-
dy. Walnuts and Locusts and Oaks, and on
ihe fine grass beneath, it is very pleasant.
Wood-cocks begin to come very thick
about.

. Fine broiler again. Some friends from

England here to-day. Wespenta plea-
sant day ; drank success to the Debt, and
destruction to the Borough usurpers, in
gallons of milk and water.—WNot more flies
than i in England.

. Very, very hot. The Thermometer 85

degrees in the shade: but a breeze. Ne-
ver slept better in all my life. No cover-
ing. A sheet under me, and a straw bed.
And then, so happy to have no clothes to
put on but shoes and trowsers! My win-
dow looks to the East. ‘The moment the

_ Aurora appears, Iam in the orchard. It

is impossible for any human being to tead
a pleasanter life than this. How I pity

‘those, who are compelled to endure the

stench of cities; but, for those who re-

- main there without being compelled, I

have no pity.

29. Still the same degree of heat. I measur-

3

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part [.

ed a water-melon runner, which grew
eighteen inches in the last 48 hours. The
dews now are equal to showers. I fre-
quently, in the morning, wash hands,

_ face, feet and legs in the dews on the high

- July 30.
31.
August 1.

ne)

“I o>

grass. The Indian Corn shoots up now

so beautifully !

Still melting hot.

Same weather.

Same weather. I take off two shirts a

day wringing wet. I have a clothes horse

to hang them on to dry. Drink about 20

th tumblers of milk and water every
day. No ailments. Head always clear.

Go to bed by day light very often. Just

after the hens go to “roost, and rise again

with them.

. Hotter and hotter, I think; but, in this

weather we always have our friendly
breeze. Not a single Musquito yet.

. Cloudy and alittle shattering of rain ; but

not enough to lay the dust.

. Fine hot day.
. Avery little rain. Dried up in a minute.

Planted cabbages with dust running into
the holes.

. Fine hot day.
. Appearances forbode ram.—lI have ob-

served that, when rain is approaching, the
stones (which are the rock stone of the
country), with which a piazza adjoining
the house is paved, get wet. This wet ap-
pears, at first, at the top of each round
stone, and, then, by degrees, goes all over
it. Rain is swreto follow. It has never
missed ; and, which is very curious, the
rain lasts exactly as long as the stones
take to get all over wet before it comes!
The stones get dry again before the rain

Chap. I.

Aug. 8.

10.

16,

1

CHIMATE, SEASONS, &c. QF

ceases. However, this foreknowledge of
rain is of little use here ; for, when it
comes, it is sure to be soon gone; and to
be succeeded by a sun, which restores all

to rights. I wondered, at first, why !

never saw any barometers in people’s
houses, as almost every farmer has them
in England. But, I soon found, that they
would be, if perfectly true, of no use.
Early Peas ripe.

Fine Rain. It comes pouring down.

9, Rain still, which has now lasted 6O

hours.—Killed a lamb, and, in order to
keep it fresh, sunk it down into the well.
—The.wind makes the Indian Corn
bend.

Fine clear hot day. The grass, which

was brown the day before yesterday, is
already beautifully green. In one place,
where there appeared no signs of vegeta-
tion, the grass is two inches high.

. Heavy Rains at night.

. Hot and close.

. Hot and close.

. Hot and close. No breezes these three

days.

. Very hot indeed. 80 degrees in a north

aspect at 9 in the evening. Three wet
shirts to-day. Obliged to put on a dry
shirt to goto bedin.

Very hot indeed. 85 degrees, the ther-
mometer hanging under the Locust trees

and swinging about with the breeze.

~I

The dews are now like heavy showers.

.Fine hot day. Very hot. I fight the

Borough-villains, stripped to my shirt,
and with nothing on besides, but shoes and
trowsers. Neverill; no head-achs ; no
muddled brains. The milk and water is

24,
25.
26.
at

28.

20.
30.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &. Part I.

a great cause of this. I live on Sallads,
other garden vegetables, apple puddings
and pies, butter, cheese (very good from
Rhode Island), eggs, and bacon. Resolv-
edto have no more fresh meat, ’till cooler
weather comes. Those who have a mind
to swallow, or be swallowed by, flzes may
eat fresh meat for me.

. Fine and hot.
. Very hot.
. Very hot ; but a breeze every day and

night. Buckwheat, sown 23d July, 9
inches high, and, poor as the ground was,
looks very well.

. Fine hot day.
. Fine hot day.
. Fine hot day. I have now got an English

woman servant, and she makes us famous
apple puddings. She says she has never
read Peter Pindar’s account of the dia-
logue between the King and Cottage wo-
man ; and yet she knows very well how
to get the apples within side of the paste.
N. B. No man ought to come here,
whose wife and daughters cannot make
puddings and pies.

Fine hot day.

Fine hot day.

Fine hot day.

Fine hot day. Have not seen a cloud for
many days.

Windy and rather coldish. Put on cotton
stockings and a waistcoat with sleeves.
Do not like this weather.

Same weather. Do not like it.

Fine and hot again. Give a great many
apples to hogs. Got some hazlenuts in
the wild grounds. Larger than the Eng-
lish ; and much about the same taste.

Chap. 1.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 29

Aug. 31. Fine hot day. Prodigious dews.
Sept. 1. Fine and hot.
2. Fine and hot.
3. Famously hot. Fine breezes. Began

imitating the Disciples, at least, in their
diet ; for, to- day, we began “ plucking
the ears of corn”’ ina patch planted in the
garden on the second of June. But, we,
in imitation of Pindar’s pilgrim, take the
liberty to bo:l our Corn. We shall not

starve now.

4. Fine and hot. 83 degrees under the Lo-

cust trees.

5. Very hot indeed, but fair, with our old

breeze.

6. Same weather.
7. Same weather.
8. Same weather.
9. Rather hotter. We, amongst seven of

-us, eat about 25 ears of cornaday. With
_me it wholly supplies the place of bread.

It.is the choicest gift of God to man, in
the way of food. I remember, that Ar-

_rHUR Younc observes, that the proof of

a good climate is, that Indian Corn will
come to perfection in it. Our Corn is
very fine. I believe, that a wine-glass-
ful of milk might be squeezed out of one
ear. No wonder the Disciples were
tempted to pluck it when they were
hungry, though it was on the Sabbath
Day !

-10. Appearances for Rain ; and, it is time;

for my neighbours begin to cry out, and
our rain-water cistern begins to shrink.
The well is there, to be sure; but,
to pull water up from 70 feet is
no joke, while it requires nearly as
much sweat to gets it up as we get water.

Fs Jl

30
Sept. 11.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part L.

No Rain ; but cloudy. 83 Wieences } in the
shade.

. Rain and very hot i in the morning. Thun-

der and heavy rain at night.

. Cloudy and cool. Only 55 degrees in

shade.

. Cloudy and cool.
. Fair and cool. Made a fire to write by.

Don’t like this weather.

. Rain, warm.
- Beautiful day. Not very hot. Just like

a fine day in July in England after a rain.

. Same weather. Wear stockings now and

a waistcoat and neck handkerchief.

. Same weather. Finished our Indian

Corn, which, cn less than 4 rods, or
perches of ground, produced 447 ears.
it was singularly well cultivated. It was
the long Yellow Corn. Seed given me
by my excellent neighbour, Mr. Joun
‘TREDWELL.

. Same weather.

. Same weather.

. Same weather.

- Cloudy and hotter.

t. Fine Rain all last might and until ten

o’clock to-day.

25. Beautiful day.
26. Same weather. 70 degrees in shade.

Hot as the hot days in August in England.

. Rain all last night.
28. Very fine and warm. Left off the stock-

ings again.

. Very fine. 70 degrees in shade.
. Same weather.
. Same weather. Fresh meat keeps pret-

ty well now.

. Very fine ; but, there was a little frost

Chap. I.

Oct. 3.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 31

this morning, which did not, however, af-
fect the late sown Kidney Beans, which
are as tender as the cucumber ‘plant.
Cloudy and warm.

. Very fine and warm. 70 degrees in

shade. The apples are very fine. We
are now cutting them and quinces to dry
for winter use. My neighbours give me
quinces. We are also = up and
drying peaches.

. Very fine and warm. Dwarf Kidney

Beans very fine.

. Very fine and warm. Cutting Buckwheat.
. Very fine and warm. 65 degrees in shade

at 7 o’clock this morning.—Windy in the
afternoon. The wind is knocking down
the fall-pippins for us. One picked up to-
day weighed 12 1-4 ounces avoirdupois
weight. ‘The average weight is about 9
ounces, or, perhaps, 10 ounces. ‘This is
the finest of all apples. Hardly any core.
Some none at all. The richness of the
pine-apple without the roughness. Ifthe
King could have seen one of these in a
dumpling! This is not the Vewtown pippin,

which is sent to England in such quanti-
ties. That isa winter apple. Very fine
at Christmas ; but far inferior to this fall
pippin, taking them both in their state of

perfection. It is useless to send the trees

to England, unless the heat of the sun and
the rains and dews could be sent along
with the trees.

. Very fine. 68 in shade.
. Same weather.
.Same weather. 59 degrees in shade. A

little white frost this morning. It just
touched the tips of the Kidney Bean
leaves ; but, not those of the cucumbers
or melons, which are near fences.

32
Oct. 11.

*

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part f.

Beautiful day. 61 degrees in shade.
Have not put on coat yet. Wear thin
stockings, or socks. Waistcoat with
sleeves and neck cloth. In New-York
Market, Kidney Beans and Green Peas.

. Beautiful day. 70 degrees in shade.
. Same weather. | :
. Rain. 50 degrees in shade. Like a

fine, warm June rain in England.

. Beautiful day. 56 degrees in shade.

Here is a month of October !

24.

. Same weather. 51 degrees in shade.
. Same weather. But a little warmer in

the day. A smart frost this morning.
The Kidney Beans, Cucumber and Melon
plants, pretty much cut by it.

. A little rain in the night. A most beau-

tiful day. 54 degrees in shade. A June
day for England.

. A very white frost this morning. Kidney

Beans, Cucumbers, Melons, all demolish-
ed ; but a beautiful day. 56 degrees in
shade. E

. Another frost, and just such another day.

—Threshing Buckwheat in field.

. No frost. 58 degrees in shade.
. Finest of English June days. 67 degrees

in shade.

. Beautiful day. 70 degrees in shade.

Very few summers in England that have a
day hotter than this. It is this fine sun
that makes the fine apples !

Same weather precisely. Finished Buck-
wheat threshing and winnowing. The
men have been away at a horse-race ;
so that it has laid out in the field, partly
threshed and partly not, for five days. If
rain had come, it would have been of no
consequence. All would have been dry

Chap. I.

96.

2

3.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 33

again directly afterwards. What a stew
a man would be in, in England, if he had
his grain lying about out of doors in this

way! The cost of threshing and winnow-

ing 60 bushels was 7 dollars, 1/. 11s. 6d.
English money, that is to say, 4s. a
quarter, or 8 Winchester bushels. But,
then, the carting was next to nothing.
Therefore, though the labourers had a
dollar a day each, the expense, upon the
whole was. not so great as it would have
been in England. So much does the cli-
mate do!

. Rain. A warm rain, like a fine June

rain in England. 57 degrees in shade.
The late frosts have killed or, at least,
pinched, the leaves of the _ trees;
and they are now red, yellow, russet,
brown, or of a dying green. Never was
any thing so beautiful as the bright sun,
shining through these fine lofty trees up-
on the gay verdure beneath.

Rain. Warm. 58 degrees in shade.
This is the general Indian Corn harvest.
Rain. Warm. 58 degrees in shade.
Put on coat, black hat and black shoes.

. Fine day. 56 degrees in shade. Pulled

up a Radish that weighed 12 pounds! I
say twelve, and measured 2 feet 5 inches
round. From common English seed.

. Very fine indeed.
. Very fine and warm.
. Very fine. 54 degrees in shade. Gath-

ered our last lot of winter apples.

. Rain all the last night and all this day.
. Rain still. 54 degrees inshade. Warm.

Things grow well. The grass very fine
and luxuriant.
Very fine indeed. 56 in shade. Were it

34

Nov. 4.

AG.

€LIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I.

‘not for the colour of the leaves of the
trees, all would look like June in England.
Very, very fine. | Never saw such plea-
sant weather. Digging Potatoes.

5. Same weather precisely.
6.
7. Most beautiful weather! 63 degrees in

A little cloudy but warm.
shade. N.B. This is Wovember.

. A little cloudy at night fall. 68 degrees
in shade ; that is to say, English Summer
heat all but 7 degrees.

. Very fine.

. Very fine.

. Very fine. When I got up this morning,

I found the thermometer hanging on the
Locust trees, dripping with dew, at 62 de-
grees. Left off my coat again.

. Same weather. 69 degrees in shade.
. Beautiful day, but cooler.
. Same weather. 50 degrees in shade.

The high ways and paths as clean as a
boarded floor ; that is to say, from dirt
or mud. |

.Gentle rain. 53in shade. Like a gen-

tle rain in May in England.
Gentle rain. Warm. 56inshade. What.
a November for an Englishman to see!
My White Turnips have grown almost the
whole of their growth in this month. The
Swedish, planted late, grow surprising
now, and have a luxuriancy of appear-
ance exceeding any thing of the kind I

.ever saw. We have fine loaved lettu-

17

ces; endive, young onions, young radish-
es, cauliflowers with heads five inches
over. The rye fields grow beautifully.
They have been food for cattle for a
month, or six weeks past.

-Cloudy. Warm.

Chap. I.

Nov. 18.
19.
20.

Go 2

o et ee

=t

8.

9,

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &Xc. 38

Same weather. 55 degrees in shade.
Frost and the ground pretty hard.

Very fine indeed. Warm. 55 degrees in
shade.

. Same weather. :
. Cold, damp air, and cloudy.
. Smart frost at night.

Same. Warm in the day time.

; Same ; but more warm in the day.

. Fine warm and beautiful day ; no frost at

night. 57 degrees in shade.

. Same weather precisely ; but, we begin

to fear the setting in of winter, and 1 am
very busy in covering up cabbages, man-
gle wurzle, turnips, beets, carrots, pars-
nips, parsley, &c, the mode of doing which
(not less useful in England than here,
though not so indispensably necessary)
shall be described when | come to speak
ofthe management of these several plants.

. Fine warm Rain. 56 in shade.

Very fair and pleasant, but frost suffh-
ciently hard to put a stop to our getting

. | up and stacking Turnips. Still, howe-

ver, the cattle and sheep do pretty well
upon the grass, which is long and dead.
Fatting oxen we feed with the greens
of Ruta Baga, with some Corn, (Indian,
mind) tossed down to them in the ear.
Sheep (Ewes that had lambs in spring)
| we kill very fat from the grass. No
| dirt. What a clean and convenient
soul.
Thaw. No rain. We get on with our
work again. i

Dec.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part 4.

. Open mild weather.

. Same weather. Very opie
. Rain began last night.

. Rain all day.

. Ram allday. The old Indian remark i is,

that the winter does not set in, *till the

ponds be full. It is coming, then. |

. Rain till 2 o’ clock. We kill mutton now.

_ Ewes, brought from Connecticut, and sold

1G.

to me here at two dollars each in July,
just after shearing. I sell them now alive
at three dollars each from the grass. Kill-
ed and sent to market, they leave me the
loose fat for candles and fetch about 3
dollars and a quarter besides.

Sharp orth West wind. This is the cold
American Wind. ‘‘ A North Wester’’ means
all that can be tmagined of clear in sum-

mer and cold in winter. I remember.

hearing from that venerable and excellent
man, Mr. Baron Maseres, a very ele-
gant eulogium on the Summer North West-
erin England. This is the only public
servant that I ever heard of, who refused
a proffered augmentation of salary!

. A hardish frost.
. Open weather again.

»

. Fine mild day; but began freezing at
night-fall. ;
. Hard frost.
. Very sharp indeed. Thermometer down

to 10 degrees ; that is to say, 22 degregs
colder than barely freezing.

. Same weather. Makes us run, where we

used to walk in the fall, and to saunter in
the summer. It is no new thing to me !
but it makes our other English people
shrug up their shoulders.

. Frost greatly abated. Stones show for

—

Chap. f.

Dec. 24.

&

25.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, Xc. 37

wet. It will come in spite of the fine,
serene sky, which we now see.
A Thaw.—Servants made a lot of candies
from mutton and beef fat, reserving the
coarser parts to make soap.

Rain. Had some English friends. Sur-

loin of own beef. Spent the evening in

the light of own candles, as handsome as I
ever saw, and, I think, the very best I
eversaw. ‘The reason is, that the tal-
low is fresh, and that it is unmixed with
grease, which, and staleness, is the cause,
I believe, of candles running, and plague-
ing us while we are using them. What
an injury is it to the farmers in England,
that they dare not, in this way, use their
own produce! Is it not a ‘mockery to call
a man,free, who no more dares turn his
tallow into candles for his own use, than
he dares rob upon the high way? Yet,
itis only by means of tyranny and extor-
tion like this, that the hellish system of
Funding and of Seat-Selling can be upheld.

. Fine warm day. 52 degrees in shade.
. Cold, but little frost.
. Same weather. Fair and pleasant. ‘The

late sharp frost has changed to a complete
yellow every leaf of some Swedish Tur-
nips (Ruta Baga), left to take their chance :
It is a poor chance, ! believe!

. Same weather.
. Rain all day.
-Mild and clear. No frost.

. Same weather.

Same weather.

Heavy Rain. ©

A frost that makes us jump and skip about

like larks. Very seasonable for a slug-
4

Je) ©

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part 4.°

gish fellow. Prepared for winter. Patch- |

ed up a boarded building, which was for-
merly a coach-house ; but, which is not
so necessary to me, in that capacity, as in
that of a fowl-house. ‘The neighbours tell
me, that the poultry will roost out on the ©
trees all the winter, which, the weather
being so dry in winter, is very likely ;
and, indeed, they must, if they have no
house, which is almost universally the
case. However, I mean to give the poor
things a choice. I have lined the said
coach-house with Corn Stalks and leaves of
trees, and have tacked up Cedar boughs
to hold the lining to the boards, and have
laid a bed of leaves a foot thick all over the
floor. I have secured all against dogs,
and have made ladders for the fowls to go
in at holes six feet from the ground. I
have made pig-styes, lined round with Ce-
dar boughs and well covered. A sheep
yard, for a score of Ewes to have lambs iu
‘Spring, surrounded with a hedge of cedar
boughs, and with a shed for the Ewes to
lie under, if they like. The oxen and
cow are tied up in a stall. The dogs
have a place, well covered, and lined
with corn stalks and leaves. And now, I
can, without anxiety, sit by the fire, or lie |
in bed, and hear the North- Wester whis-
tle.

. Frost. Like what we call ‘‘ ahard frost”
in England.

Such another frost at nite: but a thaw in
the middle of the day.

. Little frost. Fine warm day. The sun
seems loath to quit us.

. Same weather.

. A harder frost, and snow at night. The

Chap. I.

Jan. 10.

il.
12.

1S.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. oo

fowls, which have been peeping at my
ladders for two or three evenings, and
partially roosting in their house, made
their general entry this evening ! They
are the best judges of what is best for
them. The turkeys boldly set the wea-
ther at defiance, and still roost on the top,
the ridge, of the roof of the house. Their
feathers prevent their legs from being
frozen, and so it is with all poultry ; but,
still, a house must, one would think, be
better than the open air at this season.
Snow, but sleppy. Iam now at New-
York on my way to Pennsylvania. N. B.
This journey into Pennsylvania had, for
its principal object an appeal to the jus-
tace of the Legislature of that state for re-
dress for greatloss and injury sustained by
me, nearly twenty years ago, in conse-
quence of the tyranny of one M‘Kean,
who was then Chief Justice of that State.
The appeal has not yet been successful ;
but, as I confidently expect, that it finally
will, I shall not, at present, say any thing
more on the subject.—My journey was
productive of much and various observa-
tion, and, I trust, of useful knowledge.
But, in this place, I shall do little more
than give an account of the weather; re-
serving for the Seconp Part, accounts of
prices of land, &c. which will there come
under their proper heads.
Frost but not hard. Now at New-York
Very sharp frost. Set off for Philadel-
phia. Broke down on the road in New-
Jersey.
Very hard frost still. Found the Dela-
ware, which divides New-Jersey from
Pennsylvania, frozen over. Good roads

4Q

Jan. 14.

}

a

Jv.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I.

‘now. Arrived at A halageinbia in the

evening.
Same weather.

Same weather. ‘Fhe question eagerly
put to me by every one in Philadelphia,
is: ‘* Don’t you think the city greatly
improved ?”. ‘They seem to me to con-
found augmentation with zmprovement.—
It always was a fine city, since I first
knew it ; and itis very greatly augment-
ed. It has, I believe, nearly doubled its
extent and number of houses since the
year 1799. But, zfter being, for so long
a time, familiar with London, every other
place appears little. After living within
afew hundreds of yards of Westminster
Hall and the Abbey Church and the
Bridge, and looking from my own windows:
into St. James’s Park, all other buildings

~and spots appear mean and insignificant.

I went to-day to see the house I former-
ly occupied. How smail! It is always
thus : the words large and smali are car-
ried about with us in our minds, and we
forget real dimensions.~ The idea, such
as it was received, remains during our ab-
sence from the object. When I ‘returned
to England, in 1800, after an absence from
the country parts of it, of sixteen years,
the trees, the hedges, even the parks
and woods, seemed so sali! It made
me laugh to hear little gutters, that I
could jump over, called Rivers! The
Thames was buta “ Creek!” But, when,
in about a month after my arrival in Lon-
don, | went to Farnham, the place of my

birth, what was my surprise! Every

thing was become so pitifully small / ‘I

* Thad te cross, In my post-chaise, the long

Chap. I.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, We. 4]

and dreary heath of Bagshot. Then, at
the end of it, to mount a hill, called hun-
gry-hill ; and from that hill I knew that
{ should look down into the beautiful and
fertile vale of Farnham. My heart flut-
tered with impatience, mixed with a sort
of fear, to see all the scenes of my child-
hood; for! had learnt before, the death
of my father and mother. There is a hill,
not far from the town, called Crooksbury
Hill, which rises up out of a flat, in the
form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch
fir trees. Herel used to go to take the
eggs and young ones of crows and mag-
pies. This hill was a famous object in
the neighbourhood. It served us as the
superlative degree of height. ‘* 4s hgh
as Crooksbury Hill’? meant, with us, the
utmost degree of height. Therefore, the
first object that my eyes sought was this
hill. J could not believe my eyes! Lite-
rally speaking, I, for a moment, thought
the famous hill removed, and a little heap
put in its stead; for I had seen, in New
Brunswick, a single rock, or hill of solid
rock, ten times as big and four or five
times as high! The post-boy, going down
hill and not a bad road, wisked me, in a
few minutes to the Bush Inn, from the
garden of which I could see that prodi-
gious sand hill, where 1 had begun my
gardening works. What a zothing! But

now came rushing into my mind, all at

once, my pretty little garden, my little

blue smock-frock, my little nailed shoes,

my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out

of my hands, and the last kind words and

the tears of my gentle and tender-hearted

and affectionate mother! I hastened back
A*

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part f. |

into the room. If I had looked a mo-
ment longer, I should have dropped.—
When I came to reflect, what a change !
I looked down at my dress. What a
change! What scenes I had gone
through! How altered my state! I
had dined the day before at a Secretary
of State’s, in company with Mr. Pitt, and
had been waited on by men in gaudy hive-
cies! I had had nobody to assist me in
the world. No teachers of any sort.—
Nobody to shelter me from the conse-
quence of bad, and no one to counsel me
to good, behaviour. I felt proud. The
distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth all
became nothing in my eyes; and, from

- that moment (less than a month after my

Jan. 16.

arrival in England) I resolved never ta
bend before them.

Same weather. Went to see my old Qua-
ker-friends at Bustleton, and particularly
my beloved friend Jamzs Pavut, who is

_ very ill.

. Returned to Philadelphia——Little frost

and a little snow. i
Moderate frost. Fine clearsky. The
Philadelphians are cleanly, a quality —
which they owe chiefly to the Quakers.
But, after being long and recently fa- |
miliar with the towns in Surrey and’
Hampshire, and especially with Guildford, |
Alton and Southampton, no other towns
appear clean and neat, not even Bath or |
Salisbury, which last is much about upon |
a par, in point of cleanliness, with Phila-
delphia ; and, Salisbury is deemed a very —
cleanly place. Blandford and Dorches- |
ter are clean; but, I have never yet —
seen any thing like the towns in Surrey |

(chap. I.

Jan. 22.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, Wc. 43

and Hampshire. If a Frenchman, born
and bred, could be taken up and carried
blindfolded to Guildford, I wonder whai
his sensations would be, when he came
to have the use of his sight! Every thing
near Guildford seems to have received an
influence fromthe town. Hedges, gates,
stiles, gardens, houses inside and out, and
the dresses of the people. The market

day at Guildford is a perfect show of clean-

liness. Not even a carter without aclean
smock-frock and closely-shaven and clean-
washed face. Well may Mr. Birxsecx,
who came from this very spot, think the
people dirty in the Western Country !—
(ll engage he finds more dirt upon the
necks and faces of one family of his pre-
sent neighbours, than he left behind him
upon the skins of all the people in the
three parishes of Guildford. However,
he would not have found this to be the.
case in Pennsylvania, and especially in
those parts where the Quakers abound ;
and, I am told, that, in the New England
States, the people are as cleanly and as
neat as they arein England. The sweet-
est flowers, when they become putrid,
sunk the most ; and, a nasty woman is
the nastiest thing in nature.

Haid frost.—My business in Pennsylya-
nia is with the Legislature. It is sitting
at Harrisburgh. Set off to-day by the

stage. Fine country ; fine barns ; fine

farms. Must speak particularly of these

in another place. Gotto Lancaster. The

_ largest inland town in the United States.

A very clean and good town. No beg-
garly houses. All looks lke ease and
plenty.

44

Jan.

23.

24,
. A sort of half-thaw. Sun warm. dHar-

oO

~

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I.

Harder frost ; but not very severe. A-
bout as cold as the weather was during
the six-weeks’ continuance of the snow,
in 1814, in England.

The same weather continues.

risburgh is a new town, close on the left
bank of the River Susquehannah, which
is not frozen over, but has large quanti-
ties of ice floating on its waters. All ve-
getation, and all appearance of green, gone
away.

26. Mild weather. Hardly any frost.

27. Thaw. Warm. Tired to death of the

28.

Tavern at Harrispurcu, though a very
good one. The cloth spread three times
a day. Fish, fowl, meat, cakes, eggs,
sausages ; all sorts of things in abun-
dance. Board, lodging, civil but not
servile waiting on, beer, tea, coffee, cho-
colate. Price a dollar and a quarter a
day. Here we meet all together : Sena-
tors, Judges, Lawyers, Tradesmen, Farm-
ers and all. I am weary of the ever-
lasting loads of meat. Weary of bemg idle.
How few such days have I spent in my
whole life !

Thaw ‘and rain.—My business not coming
on, I went to a country Tayern, hoping
there to get a room to myself, in which
to read my English papers, and sit down
to writing. | am now at M‘Allister’s
Tavern, situated at the foot of the first
ridge of mountains ; or rather, upon a
hittle nook of land, close to the river,
where the river has found a way through
a break in the chain of mountains. Great
enjoyment here. Sit and read and write.
My mind is again in England. Mrs.
M‘A.uisTER just suits me. Does not pes-

Chap. I.

Jan, 29.

Gy

“1m

- with the “ Yeomanry Cavalry !
. Same weather. About the same as 2
‘hard frost” in England.

. Same weather.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. - 45

ter me with questions. Does not cram
me with meat. Lets me eat and drink
what I like, and when I like, and gives
mugs of nice milk. I find here, a very
agreeable and instructive occasional com-
panion, in Mr. M‘Axuisrer the elder.
Bat, of the various useful information that
I received from him, I must speak in the
Second Part of this work.

Very hard frost this morning. Change
very sudden. » All about the house a glare
of ice.

. Not so hard. Teicles on the trees on

the neighbouring mountains like so many
millions of sparkling stones, when the sun
shines, which is all the day.

. Same weather. Two farmers of Ly-

coming county had heard that William
Cobbett was here. They modestly in-

troduced themselves. What a contrast
p>?

Snow.

. Littlesnow. Not much frost. This day,

thirty-three years ago, I enlisted as a sol-
dier. lL always keep the day in recol-
lection.

. Having been to Harrisburgh on the 2d,

returned. to M*<Allister’s to-day in a
sleigh. The River begins to be frozen
over. It is about a mile wide.

. Little snow again, and hardish frost.
. Now and then a hittle snow.—Talk with

some hop-growers. Prodigious crops in
this neighbourhood ; but, of them in the
Second Part. What: would a Farnham
man think of thirty hundred weight of hops

y” *

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &e. Part.t :

upon four hundred hills, ploughed be-
tween, and the ground vines fed off by
sheep! This is a very curious and in-
teresting matter.

Feb. 8. 4 real frost. ‘
Qa

13.
. A complete day of rain.
15.

. Sharper. They say that the Thermo-

meter is down to 10 degrees below nought.

. A little milder ; but very cold indeed.—

The River completely frozen over, and
sleighs and foot-passengers crossing in all
directions.

. Went back again to Harrisburgh. Mild

frost.

. Not being able to bear the idea of dancing

attendance, came to Lancaster, in order
io see more of this pretty town. Avery
fine Tavern (Slaymaker’s); room to my-
self; excellent accommodations. Warm
fires. Good and clean beds. Civil but
not servile, landlord. The eating still
more over-done than at Harrisburgh.—
Never saw such profusion. I have made
a bargain with the landlord : he is to give
me a dish of chocolate a day, instead of
dinner.—F rost, but mild. .

Rain.—A real rain, but rather cold.

A hard frost; much about like a hard
frost in the naked parts of Wiltshire.—
Mr. Hutme joined me on his way to Phi-
ladelphia from the city of Washington.

. A hard frost.—Lancaster is a very pretty

place. No fine buildings ; but no mean
ones. Nothing splendid and nothing beg-
garly. The people of this town seem to
have had»the prayer of Hacar granted
them : ‘‘ Give me, O Lord, neither pover-
ty nor riches.” Here are none of those
poor, wretched habitations, which sicken

a—*

Chap. I. CLIMATE, SEASONS, Xc. 47

the sight at the outskirts of cities and
towns in England; those abodes of the
poor creatures, who have been reduced
to beggary by the cruel extortions of the
rich and powerful. And, this remark ap-
plies to all the towns of America that I
have ever seen. This is a fine part of
America. Big Barns, and modest dwell-
ing houses. Barns of stone, a hundred
feet long and forty wide, with two floors,
and raised roads to go into them, so that
the wagons go into the first floor up-stairs.
Below are stables, stalls, pens, and all
sorts of conveniences. Up-stairs are
rooms for threshed Corn and Grain; for
tackle, for meal, for all sorts of things.
In the front (South) of the barn is the cat-
tle yard. ‘These are very fine buildings.
And then, all about them looks so com-
fortable, and gives such manifest proofs
of ease, plenty and happiness! Such is
the country of Wiitiam Penn’s settling!
tt is a curious thing to observe the farm
houses in this country. They consist, al-
most without exception, of a considerably
large and a very neat house, with sash-
windows, and of a small house, which
seems to have been tacked on to the large
one ; and, the proportion they bear to
each other, in point of dimensions, is as
nearly as possible, the proportion of size
between a Cow and her Calf, the latter a
month old. But, as to the cause, the pro-
cess has been the opposite of this instance
of the works of nature ; for it is the large
house which has grown out of the small one.
The father, or grand-father, while he was
toiling for his children, lived mn the small
house, constructed chiefly by himself,

ve RYE ys

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I.

and consisting of rude materials. The
means, accumulated in the small house,
enabled a son to rear the large one ; and, |
though, when pride enters the door, the |
small house is sometimes demolished, few —
sons in America have the folly or want of

feeling to commit such acts of filial in-
gratitude, and of real self-abasement.
For, what inheritance so valuable and so |
honourable can a son enjoy as the proof |
of his father’s industry and virtue? The |
progress of wealth and ease and enjoy-
ment evinced by this regular increase of |
the size of the farmers’ dwellings is a
spectacle, at once, pleasing, in a very
high degree, in itself, and, in the same
degree, it speaks the praise of the system
of government, under which it has taken
place. Whata contrast with the farm-
houses in England! There the little farm- _
houses are falling into ruins, or, are —
actually become cattle-sheds, or, at best,

cottages, as they are called, to contain a

miserable labourer, who ought to have

been a little farmer as his grand-father |
was. Five or six farms are there now |
Jevelled into one, in defiance of the law; |
for, there is a law to prevent it. The
farmer has, indeed, a fine house; but,
what a life do his labourers lead! The
cause of this sad change is to be found in
the crushing taxes; and the cause of
them, in the Borough usurpation, which
has robbed the people ef their best right,
and, indeed, without which right, they
can enjoy no other. They talk of the
augmented population of England ; and,
when it suits the purposes of the tyrants,
they boast of this fact, as they are pleased

Chap. 1.

see > .
Es aS aS tg Pa

‘se : 3

ae

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &e. 49

to cali it, as a proof of the fostering na-
ture of their government ; though, just

now, they are preaching up the vile and
foolish doctrine of Parson Mattuvus, who
thinks, that there are teo many people,
and that they ought (those who labour,
at least) to be restrained from breeding so
fast. But, as to the fact, Ido not believe
it, There can be nothing in the shape of
proof ; for no actual enumeration was
ever taken *till the year 1800. Weknow
well, that London, Manchester, Bir-
mingham, Bath, Portsmouth, Plymouth,

‘and all Lancashire and Yorkshire and

some other counties have got a vast
increase of miserable beings huddled
iogether. But, look at Devonshire,
Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire,
Hampshire, and other counties. You will
there see hundreds of thousands of Acres
of land, where the old marks of the
plough are visible, but which have not
been cultivated for, perhaps, half a cen-
tury. You will there see places, that
were once considerable towns and villa-
ges, now having, within their ancient
limits, nothmg but a few cottages, the
Parsonage, and a single Farin-house. It
is acurious and a melancholy sight, where
an ancient church, with its lofty spire or
tower, the church sufficient to contain a
thousand or two or three thousand of
people conveniently, now stands surroun-
ded by a score or half a score of miserable
mud-houses, with floors of earth and
covered with thatch; and this sight
strikes your eye in all parts of the five
Western counties of England. Surely
these churches were not built without the
5

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part I.

existence of a population somewhat pro-

Feb. 17.
18.

portionate to their size! Certainly not ;
for the churches are of various sizes,
and, we sometimes see them very small
indeed. Let any man look at the sides
of the hills in these counties, and also in
Hampshire, where downs, or open lands,
prevail. He will there see, not only
that these hills were formerly cultivated ;
but, that banks, from distance to distance,
were made by the spade, in order to
form little flats for the plough to go with-
out tumbling the earth down the hill;
so that the side of a hill looks, in some
sort, like the steps of a stairs. Was this
done without hands, and without mouths
to consume the grain raised on the sides
of these hills ? The Funding and Manu-
facturing and Commercial and Taxing
system has, by drawing wealth into great
masses, drawn men also into great masses.
London, the Manufacturing Places, Bath
and other places of dissipation, have.
indeed, wonderfully increased in popula-
tion. Country seats, Parks, Pleasure
gardens, have, in a like degree, increased
in number and extent. And, in just the
same proportion hus beer the i jcrease of
Poor-houses, Mad-houses and Jails. But,
the people of England, such as ForteEscur
described them, have been swept away
by the ruthless hand of the Aristocracy,
who, making their approaches by slow
degrees, have, at last, got into their grasp
the substance of the whole country.
Frost, not very hard. Went back to Har-
risburgh.

Same weather. Very fine. Warm inthe
middle of the day.

Chap. I.
Feb. £03

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Si

Same weather. Quitted Harrisburgh, very

- much displeased ; but, on this subject, I

20.

shall, if possible, keep silence, “tll neat
year, and until the People of Pennsylvania
have had time to reflect; to clearly un-
derstand, my affair; and, when they
do understand it, 1 am not at all afraid of
receiving justice at their hands, whether
1 am present or absent.—Slept at Lancas-
ter. One night more in this very excel-
lent tavern.
Frost still. Arrived at Philadelphia along
with my friend Hutme. They are roast-
ing an ox on the Delaware. The fooleries
of England are copied here, and every
where in this country, with wonderful
avidity ; and, I wish 1 could say, that
some of the vices of our ‘‘ higher orders,”
as they have the impudence to eall them-
selves, were not also imitated. Howe-
ver, I look principally at the mass of far-
mers ; the sensible and happy farmers of
America.

How and Rain.—The severe weather is
over for this year.

_ Thaw and Rain. A solid day of rain.
_ Little frost at night. Fine market. Fine

meat of allsorts. As fat mution as 1 ever
saw. How mistaken Mr. Birkbeck is
about American mutton.

Same weather. Very fair days now.

Went to Bustleton with my old friend, Mr.
John Morgan.

Returned to Philadelphia. Roads very,

dirty and heavy.

. Complete thaw ; but, it will be long be-

fore the frost be out of the ground.

28. Same weather. Very warm. | hate this

weather, Hot upon my back and melt-

cu

CLIMATE, SEASONS, Nc. Part-I.

ing ice under my feet. The people
(those who have been lazy) are chop-
ping away with axes the ice, which has
grown out of the snows and rains, before
their doors, during the winter. The hogs
(best of scavengers) are very busy in the
streets seeking out the bones and bits of
meat, which have been flung out and fro-
zen down amidst water and snow, during
the two foregoing months. I mean in-
cluding the present month. At New-
York (and, I think, at Philadelphia also)
they have corporation laws to prevent
hogs from being in the streets. For
what reason, | know not, except putrid
meat be pleasant to the smell of the inha-
bitants. But, Corporations are seldom
the wisest of law-makers. It is argued,
that, if there were no hogs in the streets,
people would not throw out their orts of
flesh and vegetables. Indeed! What
would they do with those orts, then ?
Make their hired servants eat them ?
The very proposition would leave them
to cook and wash for themselves. Where,
then, are they to fling these effects of su-
perabundance ? Just before I left New-
York for Philadelphia, I saw a sow very
comfortably dining upon a full quarter
part of what appeared to have been a

Jine leg of mutton, How many a family

in England would, if within reach, have
seized this meat from the sow! And, are
the tyrants, who have brought my indus-
trious countrymen to that horrid state of
misery, never to be called to account !
Are they always to carry it as they now
do! Every object almost, that strikes my
view, sends my mind and heart back te

_ hap. I.

March 1.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 53

England. In viewing the ease and hap-
piness of this people, the contrast fills my
soul with indignation, and makes it more
and more the object of my life to assist in
the destruction of the diabolical usurpa-
tion, which has trampled on king as well
as people. xe

Rain. Dined with my old friend Sz-
VERNE, an honest Norfolk man, who used
to carry his milk about the streets, when I
first knew him, but, who is now a man of
considerable property, and, like a wise
man, lives in the same modest house
where he formerly lived. Excellent
roast beef and plum pudding. At his house
I found an Englishman, and, from Botley
too! Thad been told of such a man being
in Philadelphia, and that the man said,
that he had heard of me, “‘ heard of such a
gentleman,” but ‘‘ did not know much of
him.’? This was odd! I was desirous of
seeing this man. Mr. Severne got him
to his house. His name is Vere. I knew
him the moment I saw him ; and, I won-
dered why it was that he knew so little of
me. 1 found, that he wanted work, and
that he had been assisted by some society
in Philadelphia. He said he was lame,
and he might be a little, perhaps. f
offered him work at once. No: he wanted
to have the care of a farm! ‘* Go,” said
T, ‘for shame, and ask some farmer for
“work. You will find it ¢mmediutely and
“‘with good wages. What should the
<* people in this country see in your face
‘¢te induce them to keep you in idle-
‘‘ness? They did not send for you. You
‘‘are a young man, and you came froma
<« country of able labourers. You may be

a

CLIMATE, SEASONS, Xe. Part i.

“ rich if you will work. This gentleman
‘who is ndw about to cram you with
‘‘ roast beef and plum pudding came to
“this city nearly as poor as you are ;
‘cand, I first came to this country in no
‘better plight.; Work, and { wish you
‘well ; be idle, and you ought to starve.”
He told me, then, that he was a hoop-
maker ; and yet, observe, he wanted te
have the care of a farm! N. B. If this
book should ever reach the hands of Mr.
Richard Hvixman, my excellent good.
friend of Chilling, | beg him to show
this note to Mr. Nicnonas FreemantTee,
of Botley. He will know all about this
Vere. Tell Mr. Freemant ie, thatthe Spa-
niels are beautiful, that Wood-cocks
breed here in abundance; and tell
him, above all, that I frequently think

of him as a pattern of industry in busi-

to

3.
4.
5.
6.

f 5
8.

ness, of skill and perseverance and good
humour as a sportsman, and of honesty
and kindness as a neighbour. Indeed, I
have pleasure in thinking of all my Bot-
ley neighbours, except the Parson, who,
for their sakes, | wish, however, was my
neighbour now ; for here he might pursue
his calling very guvzetly.

. Open weather. Went to Busileton, after

having seen Messrs. Stevens and Pen-
DRILL, and advised them to forward to me
affidavits of what they knew about Oxr-
ver, the spy of the Boroughmongers.
Frost in the morning. ‘Thaw inthe day.
Same weather inthe night. Rain all day.
Hard frost. Snow 3 inches deep.

Hard frost. About as cold as a hard frost
in January in England. .

Same weather. |

Thaw. Dry and fine.

4
a

Chap. I.

Ds

10.

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 55

Same weather. Took leave, I fear for
ever, of my old and kind friend, James
Paut. His brother and son promise to
come and see me here. I have pledged
myself to transplant 10 acres of Indian
Corn ; and, if i write, in August, and say
that itis good, ‘THomas Pav has promis-
ed that he will come ; for, he thinks that
the scheme is a mad one.

Same weather.—Mr. Vareg, a son-in-law
of Mr. James Paut, brought me yester-
day to another son-in-law’s, Mr. Ezra
TownsHenpD at Brisery. Here I am
amongst the thick of the Quakers, whose
houses and families pleased me so much
formerly, and which pleasure is all now
revived. Here all is ease, plenty, and
cheerfulness. These people are never
giggling and never in low spirits. Their
minds, like their dress, are simple and
strong. Their kindness is shown more
in acts than in words. Let others say
what they will, | bave uniformly found
those whom I have intimately known of
this sect, sincere and upright men ; and,
I verily believe, that all those charges of
hypocrisy and craft that we hear against
Quakers arise from a feeling of envy ; en-
vy inspired by seeing them possessed of
such abundance of all those things, which
are the fair fruits of care, industry, eco-
nomy, sobriety, and order, and which are

_ justly forbidden to the drunkard, the

glutton, the prodigal and the lazy. As
the day of my coming to Mr. Town-
suenn’s had been announced before-
hand, several of the young men, who
were babies when I used to be there for-
merly, came to see ‘* Bitty Copsetr,”
of whom they had heard and read so

Ger

is)

es

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &e. ParM..

much. When I saw them and_ heard
them, ‘‘ What a contrast,” said I to my-
self, ‘* with the senseless, gaudy, upstart,

e: hectoring, insolent and cruel Yeoman-
‘¢ ry Cavalry in England, who, while they
‘‘ orind their labourers into the revolt of
‘‘ starvation, gallantly sally forth with
‘* their sabres to chop them down at the
‘* command of a Secretary of State ; and,
‘* who, the next moment, creep and fawo
‘* jike spaniels before their Boroughmon-
‘* ger Landlords!” At Mr. TownsHenp’s I
saw a man, in his service, lately from
Yorxsuire, but an Irishman by birth.

He wished to have an opportunity to see

‘me. He had read many of my ‘little

books.”? Ishook him by the hand, told him.
he had now got a good house over his
head and a kind employer, and advised
him not to move for one year, and to save
his wages during that year.

March 11. Same open weather.—I am now at T'ren-

ton, in New-Jersey, waiting for something
to carry me on towards New-York.—
Yesterday Mr. Townsuenp sent me on,
under an escort of Quakers, to Mr. An-
THoNy ‘T'ayLor’s. He was formerly a
merchant in Philadelphia, and now lives
in his very pretty country-house on a
very beautiful farm. He has some as fine
and fat oxen as we generally see at
Smithfield market, in London. I think
they will weigh sixty score each. Fine
farm yard. Every thing belonging to the
farm good ; but, what a neglectful garden-

er! Saw some white thorns here (brought
from England), which, if I had wanted
any proof, would have clearly proved to
me, that they would, with less care, make

CLIMATE, SEASONS, Wq. di

as good hedges here as they do at Farn-
ham, in Surry. But, in another Parr, I
shall give full information upon this head.
—Here my escort quitted me; but,
luckily, Mr. Newzotp, who lives at about
ten miles nearer Trenton than Mr. Taylot

_ does, brought me on to his house. He is

a much better gardener, or, rather, to
speak the truth, has succeeded a better,
whose example he has followed in part.
But, his farm yard and buildings! This
was a sight indeed! Forty head of horn-
cattle in a yard, enclosed with a stone
wall ; and five hundred merino Ewes,
besides young lambs, in the finest, most
spacious, best contrived and most sub-
stantially bu:lt sheds I ever saw. The
barn surpassed all that I had seen before.
His house (large, commodious and hand-
some) stands about two hundred yards
from the turnpike road, leading from
Philadelphia to New-York, looks on and
over the Delaware, which runs parallel
with the road, and has, surrounding it,

. and at the back of it, five hundred acres

of land, level as a lawn, and two feet deep
10 loam, that never requires a water-

_furrow. This was the finest sight that I

ever saw as to farm buildings and Jand.—
I forgot to observe, that I saw, in Mr.
‘TayLor’s service, another man, recently
arrived from England. A Yorkshire man.
He, too, wished tosee me. ,He had got
some of my ‘little books,” which, he had
preserved, and brought out with him. Mr.

‘TayLorn was much pleased with him. An
active, smart man ; and, if he follow my
advice, to remain a year under one root,
and save his wages, he will, in a few

38

fee" .
CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. Part f.

years, be a rich man.—These men must
be brutes indeed not to be sensible of the
great kindness and gentleness and libe- |
rality, with which they are treated.—Mr.
Taytor came, this morning, to Mr. New-
BOLD’S, and brought me on to TRenton.—
1 amat the Stage Tavern, where I have
just dined upon cold ham, cold veal,
butter, cheese, and a peach-pye; nice
clean room, well furnished, waiter clean
and attentive, plenty of milk ; and charge
a quarter of a dollar ! I thought, that Mrs.
Jorme at Princeton, (as I went on to
Philadelphia), Mrs. Bevrer at Harris-
burgh, Mr. Staymaxer at Lancaster, and
Mrs. M‘Auusrer, were low. enough in
all conscience ; but, really, this charge
of Mrs. AnpERson beats all. I have not
, had the face to pay the waiter a quarter
of a dollar ; but have given him half a
dollar, and told him to keep the change.
He is a Black man. He thanked me. But,
they never ask for any thing.—But, my
vehicle is come, and now I bid adieu to
‘Trenton, which I should have liked bet-
ter, if | had not seen so many young fel-
lows lounging about the streets and leaning
against door posts, with quids of tobacco
in their mouths, or segars stuck between
their lips, and with dirty hands and faces.
Mr. Birkbeck’s complaint, on this score,
is perfectly just.
Brunswick, New-Jersey.—Here ! am after
aride of about 30 miles, since two o’clock,
in what is called a Jersey-wagon, through
such mud as | never saw before, Upto
the stock of the wheel; and yet a pair of
very little horses have dragged us through
itin the space of five hours. The best

Chap. 1..

CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 59

horses and driver and the worst roads i
ever setmy eyes on. This part of Jersey
is a sad spectacle after leaving the
brightest of all the bright parts of Penn-
sylvania. My driver, who is a ‘Tavern-
keeper himself, would have been a very
pleasant companion, if he had not drunk
so much spirits on the road. This is the
great misfortune of America! As.we were
going up a hill very slowly, I could per-
ceive him looking very hard at my cheek
for some time. At last, he said: “‘I am
“ wondering, Sir, to see you look so fresh
‘and so young, considering what you
‘¢ have gone through in the world ;”’ for,
though [ cannot imagine how, he had
learnt who I was. ‘Ti tell you,” said
I, “how I have contrived the thing. I
“< rise early, go to bed early, eat sparingly,
‘never drink any thing stronger than
‘¢ small beer, shave once a day, and wash
‘my hands and face clean three times a
‘«‘ day at the very least.”” He said, that
was too much to think of doing.

March 12. Warm and fair. Like an English first of

May day in point of warmth.—I got to
Elizabeth Town Point through beds of
mud. Twenty minutes too late for the
Steam-boat. Have to wait here at the
Tavern ’tillto-morrow. Great mortifica-
tion. Supped with a Connecticut farmer,
who was taking on his daughter to Little
York in Pennsylvania. The rest of his
family he took on in the fall. He has
migrated. His reasons were these : He
has five sons, the eldest 19 years of age,
and several daughters. Connecticut is
thickly settled. He has not the means to
buy farms for the sons there. He, there-

60 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C.. Part 1. |

fore, goes and gets cheap land in Penn- |
sylvania; his sons will assist him to clear |
it ; and, thus, they will have a farm each.
To a man in such circumstances, an
‘* born with an axe in one hand andagun |
in the other,”? the Western Countries are: |
desirable ; but not to English furmers,
who have great skill in fine cultivation, |
and. who can purchase near New-York or_
Philadelphia. This Yanxey (the tnhabit-
ants of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Mas-
sachusetts and New Hampshire, onl; y are”
called Yankeys) was about the age of Sir
Francis BurnpeTrt, and, if he had been
dressed in the usual clothes of Sir Fran-~
cis, would have passed for him. Features,
hare: eyes, height, make, manner, look, .
hasty utterance at times, musical voice, |
frank deportment, pleasant smile. Al
the very fac-similie of him. I had some
early York Cabbage seed and some Cau- %
liflower seed in my pocket, which had
been sent me from London, in a Letter, ©
and which had reached me at Harris-
burgh. I could not help giving. hima lit-'
tle of each.

“March 13. Same weather.—A fine open day. Ra-
ther a cold May-day for England.—Came
to New-York by the Steam-Boat. Over
to this Island by another, took a little
light wagon, that wisked me home over
yoads as dry and as smooth as gravel
walks in an English Bishop’s garden in
the month of July. Great contrast with
the bottomless muds of New Jersey! As
I came along saw those fields of rye, which
were so green in December, now white.
Not a single sprig of green on the face of
the earth——Found that my man had

Chap. 1. __-cuimaTe, brasons, &c. 61

“ploughed: ten acres of ground.—The frost
¢ not quite clean out of the ground. It has
fi: penetrated two feet eight inches.—The
a weather here has been nearly about the

is same asin Pennsylvania ; only less snow,
and less rain.
March 14. Open weather. Very fine—Not quite
: — _ $0 Warm.
ae Same weather. -- Towne chickens.—-I hear of
aah bag gh no other in the neishbourhood. This the
me ae of my warm fowl-hovse. The

4 Se house has been supplied with eggs all the
. er winter, without any interruption. [am
told, that this has been the case at no
al “other house hereabouts.——We have now
oe cy a ean abundance of eggs. More than a

ng,

3 large. family can consume. We send
‘ee as “some to market. The fowls, I find, have’

i - wanted no feeding except during snow, or,
oY inthe very, very cold days ; and, in those

*, Pe

~~. very.cold days, they did not come out of

+ their house all the day. A certain proof,

: ‘that they like the warmth.

- 16. Little frost 1 in the sora Very fine
Rene tN en a ee ae *

pie Precisely s: same weather.
18. Same weather. —
19. Same weather. _
20. Same weather. Opened gaveral pits, in
i which I had preserved all sorts of garden
: plants and roots, and apples. Valuable
. fe experiments. As useful in England as
here, though not so absolutely necessary.
L shall communicate these in another part
of my work, nee the head of Garden-
an : j :

QT. ms praiber: The day like a fine May-
day in England. | |. am writing without
fire, and in- my waistcoat without coat.

6 ’

eM, hese ae ihe Wort
62 CLIMATE, SEASONS, 8G..6.. Rant dex!

March 22. Rain all last night, and all this day.

23, Mild and fine. A sow had alitter of pigs _
in the leaves under the trees. Judge of the
weather by this. The wind blows cold ci |
but, she has drawn together great heap
of leaves, and protects her young with ©
surprising sagacity and exemplary care |
and fondness. bs ad

24. Same weather. . aA i a

25. Still mild and fair. ~ ¥ Mec |

26. Very cold wind. We try to get the sow |
and pigs into the buildings. But the pigs a
do not follow, and we “cannot, with all” |
our temptations of corn and. all our caress-_ |

es, get the sow to move “without them ea |
by her side. She must remain “till, the hy
choose to travel. How _ does | nature, —
through the conduct of this animal, pena |
proach those mothers, who cast off their
new-born infants to depend ona hireling’ |
breast! Let every young man, before he 4
marry, read, upon this subject, the pret-_ |
ty poem of Mr. Roscoz, called ‘the
Nurse ;”’ and, let him also read, on the |
same. sabject, the eloquent, beautiful, —
and soul- ailecting pesseee in Rousseau’s q
6+ Minilexks |

7, Fine warm day. sof Teo fen: inde rain,
snow, and hard frost before morning. |
8. Hard frost, Snow 3 inches deep. * :

29, area in the night ; but, all thawed i in the ne

day, and very fart, a4

30. Prost in ni ight. Fine warm day.

31. Fine warm day.—As the winter: is now
gone, let us take a look back at its ¢ncon-
veniences CO mpared~ with those. of -an
Eaghsh j Winier.—-We have had three
months aE it; for, if we had a few days

sharp in December, we have had ma-

?

+e

Chap. 1. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c 63

ny very fine and without fire in March.
-In England winter really begins in No-
aes vember, and does not end ’till mid-March.
| Here we have greater cold; there four
times as much wet. I have had my great
*——- coat on only twice, except when sitting
».. . ina stage travelling. I have had gloves
on no oftener ; for, I do not, like the
Clerks of the Houses of Boroughmongers,
write in gloves. 1 seldom meet a wa-
- goner with gloves or great coat on. It
/ 45 generally so dry. This is the great
_ friend of man and beast. Last summer
I wrote home for nails, to nail my shoes for
winter. 1 could find none here. What
a foolish people not to have shoe-nails !
‘I forgot, that it was likely, that the ab-
sence of shoe-nails argued an absence of
the want of them. The nails are not
ne ‘come; and I have not wanted them.
PeoiEe There is no dirt except for about ten days
: Fae is “at the breaking up of the frost. The dress
of a labourer does not cost half so much
asin England. This dryness is singular-
| ly favourable to all animals. They are
~ hurt far less by dry cold than by warm
© drip, drip, drip, as it is in England.
—There has been nothing greea in the
garden, that is to say, above ground, since
December ; but, we have had, all win-
ter, and have now, white cabbages, green
suvoys, parsnips, carrots, beets, young
‘onions, radishes, white turnips, Swedish
turnips, and potatoes; and all these
in the greatest abundance (except 7a-
dishes, which were a few to try), and
always at hand at a minute’s warning.
The modes of preserving will be given in
another part of the work. What can any

Mie

ibe

* Ca 1 * Bs i Nt dt
* 4 * i ] * ry we - - ‘ " %
Py ae F i*
Or: pp TL.
’ ae : oat
ps th ¥
64 cuimare, SEASONS, Bee “Pant be

body want» “more. thas raheathiis es in’ the
garden way? However, sts ‘be ve-.
ry easy to add to the catalogue. Ap les,

quinces, cherries, currants, peaches, Wicd’
in the summer, sat excellent for tarts, and
pies. Apples i in their raw state as many
as we please... My own stock: being gone,

1 have trucked turnips for apples ; ; and) 1}

shall thus have them, if I please, ‘till ap:
ples come again on the. trees: I give ‘two.

bushels and a half of Swedish ec
one of Apples ; and, mind, this is on the last.

day of March.—I have here stated j facts, —

iced to. judge of the winter 5. and ie |
leave the English reader ‘to judge for
himself, | myself decadettys peglerre. me

American Winter.
- April i. Very fine and warm. |
2. Same weather. ~
3. Same weather. —
4, Rain all day.

Rain all day. Our he , ; :
6. Warm, but no sun-=P urkeys- begin t *
lay. ee Bi ae alk

7. Same weather. ‘My first spring operations ©

in gardening are now going on; ee

must reserve an account of them for: ano-

ther Part of my work. a ar as as
8. Warm and fair. 0 ee NE ht ag
9. Rainand*rather cold, “<s35e= 48"

10. Fair but cold. It rained but. yesterday,
and we are, to-day, feeding sheep and

lambs with grains of Corn, and with Oats,
upon the ground i in the Orchard. _ Judge,

then, of the cleanness and convenience of
this soil!

11. Fme and warm. Phy eae

12. Warm and fair.

13. Warm and fair.

4
s

wt |

-

|
ip
i

ae

%
*

it

° %
a i r S — < —

.
as

“Chap. I.

“CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. 65

April 14, Siving wind and miserably cold. Fires

again in daytime, which I have not had
for some days past.

15. Warm, like a fine May-day in England.

_ We are planting out selected roots for
seed.

16. Rain all last night. —Warm. Very fine
indeed.
a 17.Fine warm day. Heavy thunder and

,
> Be

re
yt 4
4

Ps

7a

rain at night. The Martins (not swal-

see are come into the barn, and are
looking out sites for the habitations of
_ their future young ones.

18, Cold and raw. Damp, too, which is ex-

pegncly rare. ‘The worst day | have yet
seen during the year. Stops the grass,

: stops the ‘swelling of the buds. The

_ young» “chickens hardly peep out from un-
der the wings of the hens. The lambs
don’t play, but stand knit up. The pigs
eta and squeak; and the birds are
_ gone away to the woods again.

“19, Same weather, with an “Easterly wind

Just such a wind as that, which, in BS nk
brushes round the corners of the streets

of London, and makes the old, muffled- up

‘debanchees hurry home with aching g joints.

Some hail to-day:

- 20.Same weather. Just the weather to give

drunkards the “biue devils.”

21. Frost this morning. Ice as thick as a

dollar.—Snow three times. Once to co-
ver the ground. Went off again directly.

22. Frost and ice in the morning. A very

fine day, but not warm.—Dandelions 1%
bloom.

23. Sharp white frost in morning, Warm

and fine day.
G*=

me 66. “CLIMATE, SEASONS, , Be. 4 a : Bantl>

24, Warm night, were td fair ‘day. ~ Ana
here I fete my Journal; for, sk am in|
haste to get my manuscript away ; and

there now wants only ten days to com-
plete the year.—I resume, now,. the |
Numbering of my Paragraphs; ae
begun my Journal at, the close of Para-»
graph (No. 20.2 edu. ames

bps Whee ee Ea 3 cee
91. Let us, now, ies a survey, "Or rather ~
glance, at the face which nature now wears. Dpe ™
grass begins to afford a good deal for sheey and.
for my. grazing English pigs, and. the cow an jeer ra
get. a little food from.it. The pears, ap ples, and

other fruit trees have not made much progress in
the swelling or bursting of their buds. — Othe | buds
of the Weeping willow haye ‘bursied (for, in spi te*
of that conceited ass, Mr. James Perry, to burst ~
is a regular verb, and vulgar pedants only 1 make i
irregular ,) and those of a Lilac, in a warm ety
are alinost. bursted, which isa great “deal bett
than to say, “almost burst.” Oh, the ‘eoxXcor ‘
As if an obsolete pedagogue like him: cotiintabre e.
me by his criticisms! And, as-if an error like this, 4
even if it had been one, could have ‘any thing to’ _
do with my-capacity. for, developing principles, and
for simplifying things, which, in their nature,are ‘
of great complexity !—The oaks, which, in Eng-—
land, have now their sap in full flow, are here
quite. unmoved as ‘yet. In the gardens i in general
there 1s nothing green, while in England, they have
broccalt: to eat, early cabbages planted out, \cole-
worts to eat, peas four or six inches high. Yet, we
shall have green peas and. loaved cabbage as soon
as they will. We have sprouts from the cabbage
stems preserved under cover ;.the Swedish turnip

is giving me greens from bulbs planted out in March;

Phe) os nm * »*
ee ks ch ae
ee ee
. f ‘ cd - ‘ . Me wv ©
) Chap. I. + OLIMATE, SEASONS, Wc: 4. 67.

and I have some broccoli too, just coming on for.

use. How have got this broccoli 1 must explain
“in my Gardener’s Guide ; for write one I must.
I never can leave this country without an attempt

=
a

to make every farmer a gardener.—In the meat.

‘way, we have beef, mutton, bacon, fowls, a calf
‘to killin a fortnight’s time, sucking pigs when we
» choose, lamb nearly fit to lall ; and all of our own
"breeding or our own feeding. We kill. an ox,
_ send three quarters and the hide to market and
keep one quarter. Then a sheep, which we dis-

se of in the same way. The bacon is always.

“ready. Some fowls always fatting. Young ducks

are just coming out to meet the green peas.— |

~ Chickens (the. earliest) as big as American Par-
“ tridges_ ‘(misnamed quails), and ready for the aspa-
’ -ragus, which is just coming out of the sround.
Eggs at all times more than we can consume.
And,” if there be any one, who wants better fare
“than this, let the grumbling glutton come to that

“poverty, which. Soromon has said shall be his lot.
And, the great thing of all, is, that here, every man,

e even’ every labourer, may live as well-as this, if

he will be sober and industrious.
7 ~ mentioned, and which are almost wholly wanting

here, while they are so amply enjoyed in England.
~The singing birds and the flowers. Here are ma-

22. There are two things, which I have not yet |

~ny birds in summer, and some of very beautiful. |

plumage. . There are some wild flowers, and some
. English lowers in the best gardens. But, gene-
‘rally speaking, they are birds without song, and
flowers without smell. The linnet (more than a
thousand of which I have heard warbling upon one
scrubbed oak.on the sand hills in Surrey), the sky-
lark, the gold-finch, the wood-lark, the nightingale,
the bull-finch, the black-bird, the thrush, and all
the rest of the singing tribe are wanting in these
beautiful woods and orchards of garlands. When

Bei aa: the “crimare, SEASONS, ‘Son “Part £3

these latter have dropped ther bloom, all is gone |
in the flowery way. No shepherd’s rose, no honey-_ |
suckle, none of that endless variety of beauties that
decorate the hedges and the meadows in England.
No daisies, no primroses, no cowslips, no blue-bells,
no daffodils, which, as if it were not enough for
them to charm the sight and the smell, must have |
“names, too, to delight the ear. All these are”
wanting in America. Here are, indeed, birds
which bear. the name of robin, black-bird, thrush
and gold-finch ; but, alas! the thing at Westmin-—
ster fina in ike manner the name rote parliament,
which speaks the voice of the people, whom it
pretends to represent, in much about the same
degree that the black-bird here speaks the voice”
of its name-sake in England. f
23..Of health, 1 have not yet spoken, py
though it will be a subject of remark in another.
part of my work, it is a matter of too deep inte-
rest to be wholly passed over here. In the first.
place, as to myself, I have always had excellent ©
health ; but, during a year, in England, I used a
have a cold or two ; a trifling sore throat ;
something in that way. Here, I have neither:
though I was more than two months of the winter
travelling about, and sleeping in different beds.
My family have been more healthy than in Eng-—
land, though, indeed, there has seldom been any |
serious illness in it. We have had but one viszt
from any doctor. ‘Thus much, for the present, on
this subject. I said, in the second Register I sent -
home, that this climate was not so good as that of
England. Experience, observation, a careful at-
tention to real facts, have convinced me that it 1s,
upon the whole, a better climate; though I tremble ©
lest the tools of the Boroughmongers should cite
this as a new and most flagrant proof of my incon-
sistency. England is my country, and to England
{shall return. I like’ it best, and shall always

4. 2 ¥ . ’ %
Bas a ,
rg ehh iy 5 ‘ ie |

r E, SEASONS, &e. £4 69.
fe
| tike: Aiea but, ‘eas in the word England, many

fe “seasons and eating and drinking.
» 24. In the Second Part of this work, which will
pita First Part, in the course of two months,
all take particular pains to detail all that is
within my knowledge, which I think likely to be
useful to persons who intend coming to this coun-
try. from England. «1, shall state every particular
of the expense of supporting a-family, and show
what are the means to be obtained for that pur-
“pose, and. how they are to be obtained. My. in-
“tending to. return to England ought to deter no. one
from coming, hither ; because, re was resolved, Tak
had life, to return, and [ expressed that resolation
before I. came away. But, if there are good and
ppreowy. men, who can do no good there, and
bh, mae coming hither, can withdraw the fruits of
1eir honest labour from the grasp of the Borough
tyrants, Tam bound, if 1 speak of this country at
all, ‘to tell them the real truth ; and this, as far as

Thave Sones I have} now done.

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CHAP. IL. :
RUTA BAGA. ._ S,

CULTURE, MODE OF PRESERVING, AND USES OF THE .
Roura Baca, SOMETIMES CALLED THE Russia, AND.
SOMETIMES THE SWEDISH Turnip. sy

Sah :

-

Description of the Plant. oui hs Ma a

25. It is my intention, as notiBede, in rie public | z
papers, to put into print an account of. all the ex
periments which I have made, and shall make, in |
Farming and in Gardening upon this Island. 1, se-_
veral years ago, long before tyranny showed its
present horrid front in England, formed the design -
of sending out, to be published in this country, a
treatise on the cultivation of the root and green
crops, as cattle, sheep, and hog food. This design —
was suggested by the reading of the following pas-
sage in Mr. CuHancE.ior Livinaston’ s Essay on
Sheep, which I received in 1812. After having
stated the most proper means to be employed in
order to keep sheep and lambs, during the winter
months, he adds: ‘ Having brought our flocks
‘‘ through the winter, we now come to the most
‘¢ critical season, heat is, the latter end of March
‘*“ and the month of April. At this time the ground
«« being bare, the sheep will refuse to eat their hay,
« while the scanty picking of grass, and its purga-
*« tive quality, will disable them from taking the
‘‘ nourishment that is necessary to keep them up.
‘* If they fall away their wool will be injured, and
‘** the growth of their lambs will be stopped, and
‘** even many of the old sheep will be carried off
“by the dysentery. To provide food for this sea-

itty e. Pea

Chap. IL. * /RUTA BAGA CULTERES gy 71
& 30n is fuer d ipicitie. Turnips aie Cabbage will
| * rot, and bran they will not eat after having been
-** fed on it during the winter. Potatoes, however,
»* and the Swedish Turnip, called Ruta Baga, may —
“be usefully applied at this time, and so, I think,
* might Parsnips and Carrots. But, as few of us
-* are in the habit of cultivating these plants to the |
‘« extent which is necessary for the support of a
“large flock, we must seek resources more within
“** our reach.”? And then the Chancellor proceeds

to recommend the leaving the second growth of clo-
© ver uncut, in order to produce early shoots from

sheltered buds for the sheep to eat until the coming

_of the natural grass and the general pasturage.

26. Twas much surprised at reading this’ pas-

‘sage ; having observed, when | lived in Pennsylva-
pia, how prodigiously the root-crops of every kind
flourished and succeeded with only common skill
and care ; and, in 1815, having by that time had

many crops of Ruta Baga exceeding thirty tons, or
about one thousand five hundred heaped bushels to

the acre, at Botley, I formed the design of sending
~ out to America a treatise on the culture and uses
of that root, which, I was perfectly well convinced,
could be raised with more ease here than in Eng-
Jand, and, that it might be easily preserved during
the whole year, if necessary, I had proved in ma-
ny cases.

27. If Mr. Cuancettor Livineston, whose pub-
lic-spirit is manifested fully in his excellent litife
work, which he modestly calls an Hesay, could see
my ewes and Lambs and Hogs, and Cattle, at this
‘critical season” (1 write on the 27th of March),
with more Ruta Baga at their command than they
have mouths to employ on it; if he could see me,
who am on a poor and exhausted piece of land, and
who found it covered with weeds end brambles in
the month of June last; who found no manere and
who have bought none ; if he could see me over-

de

‘ af ey 3
a
a ~ "3 ; at ’ Ms % 7% i

72 age ; cape raat BAGA “CLR, > eg: * Part 1 .

stocked, ae with ricalthg, but with food, _owing to
a little care in ‘the cultivation of this invaliable
Root, he would, I am sure, have reason to be con- |
vinced, that, if any farmer in the United States 1 is]
in want of food at this pinching season of the. year,
the fault is neither in the soil nor in the climate.
28. Itas, therefore, of my mode of cultivating
this Root in this fsland that 1 mean, at present to”
treat ; to which matter J shall add, in another Part.
hi of my work, an account of my. experiments as to~
the Manare Worrzie, or ScARCITY Roor ; “ag though,” E
“as will be ‘seen, T deem that root, except in. parti- 4
cular: cases, of very ‘inferior importance. “The ©
Parsnip, the Carrot; the Cabbage, are all excellent
an their kind and in’ wheter: uses. oe but, as” to these, A
‘have not yet made, upon a scale sufficiently large.
here, such’ experiments. as ‘would warrant a, in»
speaking: with any “great degree of confidence. RS
these and other matters I “propose to treat in ‘a fu re:
~*ture Part, which I's shall, probably, publish towards: ¢
the latter end of this present year. fades
~ 29. The Ruta Baga isa sort of Turnip ‘well.
known in the State of New York, where, under the —
name of Russia Turnip, it ist used for the table from :
Febraary to July. But, as it may be more of a>
_ stranger in other parts of the country, it seems ne-
cessary to give it enough of description to enable»
every reader to distinguish it from shel other sort
of Turnip.
30, The leaf of every other sort of artis is of
a yellowish greén, while the leaf of the Ruta Baga.
is of a bluish green, like the green of peas when of
nearly their fullsize, or like: the green of a young
and thrifty early Yorkshi ire Cabbage, Hence it is,
{ suppose, that some persons have called. it the
Cabbage-Turnip, But, the characteristics the most
decidedly distinclive are these: that the outside
of the bulb of the Ruta Baga is of a greenish hue —
mixed, towards the top, with a colour bordering on a

i

m) : AS
Chap. If. _RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Maa 73

red; and, that the inside ar the bulb, if the sort be
‘true and Pies is of a deep yellow, nearly as deep
as that of gold. : .

Mode of saving and of preserving the Seed.

31. This is rather a nice business, and should
de, by no means, executed in a negligent manner,
For, on the well- attending to this, much of the suc-

" cess depends ; and, it is quite surprising how great
losses are, in the end, frequently sustained by the

saving, in this part of the business, of an hour’s la-
bour or attention. I, one year, lost more than half’
of what would have ica an immense crop, by a
“mere piece of negligence in my bailiff as to the

iy seed, and I caused a similar loss to a gentleman i in
Berkshire, who had his seed from the same parcel
‘that mine was taken, and who had sent many miles
for it, in order to have the best in the world.

32. The Ruta Baga is apt to degenerate, if. the
seed be not saved with care. We, in England,
select the plants to be saved for seed. We exam-
tne well to find out those that run least into neck
and green. We reject all such as approach at all
towards a whitish colour, or which are even of a
greenish colour towards the neck, where there ought
to be a little reddish cast.

33. Having selected the plants with great care,
we take them up out of the place where they have
grown, and plant them in a plot distant from every
thing of the Turnip or Cabbage kind which is to
bear seed. Inthis Island, I am now, at this time,
planting mine for seed (27th March), taking all our
English precautions. It is probable, that they
would do very well, if taken out of a heap to be

_transplanted, if well selected ; but, lest this should
not do. well, I have kept my selected plants all the *
oe

74 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I.

winter in the ground in my garden well covered
with corn stalks and leaves from the trees ; and, in-
deed, this is so very little a matter to do, that it
would be monstrous to suppose, that any farmer
would neglect it on account of the labour or-trou-
ble ; especially when we consider, that the seed of
two or three turnips is more than sufficient to sow an
acre of land. I, on one occasion, planted twenty
turnips for seed, and the produce, besides what the
little birds took as their share for having kept
down the caterpillars, was twents pene and a half
pounds of clean seed.

34. The sun is*so ardent and the weather so
fair here, compared with the drippy and chilly —
climate of England, while the birds here never
touch this sort of seed, that a small plot of ground
would, if well managed, produce a great quantity
of seed. Whether it would degenerate is a matter
that I have not yet ascertained; but which I am
about to ascertain this year.

35. That all these precautions of selecting the
plants and transplanting them are necessary I know
by experience. I, on one occasion, had sown all
my own seed, and the plants had been carried off
by the fly, of which I shall have to speak presently.
I sent to a person who had raised some seed, which
I afterwards found had come from turnips left pro-
miscuous to go to seed in a part of a field where
they had been sown. ‘The consequence was, that
a good third part of my crop had no bulbs; but
consisted of a sort of rape, all leaves and _ stalks
growing very high, while even the rest of the
crop bore no resemblance, either in point of size or
of quality to turnips in the same field, from seed
saved in a proper FABRE though this ch was —
sown at a later period.

36. As to the preserving of the seed, it is an in-

variable rule applicable to all seeds, that seed,
“kept in the pod. to.the, ake time of sowing, will

eee

‘Chap. I. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 78

vegetate more quickly and more vigorously than
seed which has been sometime threshed out. But,
turnip seed will do very well, if threshed out as
soon as ripe, and kept in a dry place, and not too
much exposed to the air. A bag, hung up in adry
room is the depository that I use. But, before be-
ing threshed out, the seed should be quite ripe,
arid, if cut off, or pulled up, which latter is the best
way, before the pods are quite dead, the whole
should be suffered to he in the sun till the pods
are perfectly dead, in order that the seed may im-
bibe its full nourishment and come to complete per-
fection ; otherwise the seed will wither, much of
it will not grow at al}, and that which does grow
will produce plants far inferior to those proceeding
from well ripened seed.

Time of Sowing.

37. Our time of sowing in England is from. the
first to the twentieth of June, though some persons
sow in May, which is still better. "This was one of
the matters of the most deep interest with me,
when I came to Hyde Park. I could not begin be-
fore the month of June: for I had no ground
ready. But, then, 1 began with great care, on the
2d of June, sowing, in small plots, once every wees,
till the 30th of July. In every case the seed took
well and the eigen grew well; but, having looked
at the growth of the plots, first s sown, and caleulated
upon the probable advancement of them, I fixed
upon the 26th of June for the sowing of my princi-
pal crop.

38. I was particularly anxious to know, whether
this country were cursed with the Turnip Fly, which
is so destructive in England. It is a little insect
about the size of a bed-flea, and jumps away from

76 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. ¢

all approachers exactly like that insect. It abounds,
at sometimes, in quantities so great as to eat up ail
the young plants on hundreds and thousands of acres
in a single day. It makes its attack when the
plants are in the seed-leaf; and, it is so very gene-~
rally prevalent; that it is always an even chance, at
least, that every field that is sown will be thus
wholly destroyed. There is no remedy but that
of ploughing and sowing again ; and this is frequent-
ly repeated three times, and even then, there is no
crop. Volumes upon volumes have been written
on the means of preventing, or mitigating, this ca-
lamity ; but nothing effectual has ever been disco-
vered ; and, at last, the onlymeans of insuring a
crop of Ruta Baga in England, is, to raise the
plants in small plots, sown at many different times,
in the same manner as cabbages are sown, and, like
cabbages, transplant them ; of which mode of cul-
ture I shall speak by and by. It is very singular,
that a field sown one day, wholly escapes, while
a field, sown the next day, is wholly destroyed.
Nay,-a part.of the same field; sown in the morn-
ing, will sometimes escape, while the part, sown
in the afternoon, will be destroyed ; and, sometimes
the afternoon sowing is the part that is spared.
To find a remedy for this evil has posed all the
heads of all the naturalists aad chemists of Eng-
land. As an evil, the smut in wheat ; the wire-
worm; and the grubs above ground and under
ground ; the caterpillars green and black ; the
slug red, black and gray; though each a great tor-
mentor, are nothing. Against all these there is
some remedy, though expensive and plaguing ; or,
at any rate, their ravages are comparatively slow,
and their causes are known. But, the turnip-fly
is the English farmer’s evil genius. To discover
a remedy for, or the cause of, this plague has been
the object of inquiries, experiments, analysises,
innumerable. Premium upon premium offered

Chap. II. RUTA BAGA cuLTuRE. | ae

have only produced pretended remedies; Which
have led to disappointment and mortification ;- and,
I have no hesitation.to say, that, if any man could
find out a real remedy, and could communicate the
means of cure, while he kept the nature of the

‘ means a Bebree: he would be a much richer man
than he who should discover the longitude ; for
about fifty thousand farmers would very cheerfully
pay him ten guineas a year each.

39. The reader will easily judge, then, of my
anxiety to know, whether this mortal enemy of
the farmer existed in Long Island. This was the
first question, which I put to every one of my
neighbours, and I augured good, from their not
appearing to understand what I meant. However,
as my little plots of turnips came up successively,
I watched them as our farmers do their fields in
England. To my infinite satisfaction I found that
my alarms had been groundless. This circum-
stance, besides others that I have to mention by |
and by, gives to the stock-farmer in America so
great an advantage over the farmer in England,
or in any part of the middle and northern parts of |
Europe, that it is truly wonderful that the culture
of this root has not, long ago, become general i In
this country.

40. The time of sowing , then, may be, as.cir-~
cumstances may require, from the 25th of June to °
<bout the 10th of July; as the result of my expe-
riments will now show. The plants sown during
the first fifteen days of June grew well and attained ~
a great size and weight ; but, though they did not
actually go off to seed; they were very little short
of so doing... They rose into long and large necks -
and sent out sprouts from the upper part of the
bulb; and, then, the bulb itself (which is the thing ~
sought after) swelled no more. The substance of
the bulb became hard and stringy ; and the tur-
nips, upon the whole, were smaller and of: greatly

é

18 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part

inferior quality, compared with those, which were.
sown at the proper time. :

41. The turnips sown iaiween the 15th and
26th of June, had all these bud appearances and
quality, only in a less degree. But, those, which
were sown on the 26th of June, were perfect i in
shape, size, and quality; and though I have grown
them larger in England, it was not done without
more manure upon half an acre than! scratched
together to upon seven acres at Hyde: Park ;
but, of this I shall speak more particularly when i
come to the quantity of crop.

42. The sowings which were made sheave the
26th of June and before the 10th of July, did very
well; and, one particular sowmg on the 9th of
July, on 12 rods, or perches, of ground, sixteen
anda half feet to the rod, yielded 62 bushels,
leaves and roots cut off, which is after the rate of
992 bushels to an acre. But this sowing was on
ground extremely well prepared and sufficiently
manured with ashes from burnt earth ; a mode of

raising manure of which I shall fally treat In a
future Chapter.

43. Though this crop was so large, sown on the
9th of July, I would by no means recommend any
farmer, who can sow sooner, to defer the business
to that time; for, | am of opinion with the old
folk in the West of England, that God is almost
always on the side of early farmers. Besides, one
delay too often produces another delay; and he
who puts off to the 9th, may put off to the 19th.

44, The crops, in small plots, which I sowed
after the 9th of July to the 30th of that month,
grew very well; but they regularly succeeded
each other in diminution of size; and, which is
a great matter, the cold weather overtook them
before they were ripe; and ripeness is full as
necessary in the case of roots as in the case of
apples or of peaches.

Chap. I. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 78

Quality and Preparation of the Land.

45. As a fine, rich, loose, garden mould, of
great depth, and having a porous stratum under
it, 1s best for every thing that vegetates, except
plants that live best in water, so it is best for Ruta
Baga. But I know of no soil in the United States,
in which this root may not be cultivated with the
greatest facility. A pure sand, or a very stiff clay,
would not do well certainly ; but I have never
seen any of either in America. The soil that
I cultivate is poor almost proverbially ; but, what
it really is, is this: it is a light loam, approaching
towards the sandy. It is of a brownish colour
about eight inches deep, then becomes more of a
red for about another eight inches; and then comes
‘a mixture of a yellowish sand and of pebbles,
which continues down to the depth of many feet.

46. So much for the nature ct the land. As to
its state, it was that of as complete poverty as can
well be imagined. My main crop of Ruta Baga was
sown upon two different pieces. One of about
three acres, had borne, in 1816, some Indian Corn
Stalks. together with immense quantities of bram-
bles, grass, and weeds, of all descriptions. The
other, of about four acres, had, when | took to it,
_ Rye growing on it ; but, this Rye was so poor, that
my neighbour assured me, that it could produce
nothing, and he advised me to let the cattle and sheep
take it for their trouble of walking over the ground ;
which advice I readily followed; but, when he
heard me say, that I intended to sow Russia Tur-
nips on that same ground, he very kindly told me
his opinion of the matter, which was, that I should
certainly throw my labour wholly away.

47. With these two pieces of ground I went to
work early in June. I ploughed them very shallow,
thinking to drag the grassy clods up with the

80 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. & Part h.

harrow, to put them in heaps and burn them, in |
which case I would (barring the fly ?)s have pledged |
my life for a crop of Ruta Baga. It adversely
happened to rain when my clods oad have been
burnt, and the furrows were so solidly fixed down
by the rain, that | could not tear them up with the
harrow ; and, besides, my time of sowing came on
apace. Thus situated, and having no faith in
what I was told about the dangers of deep plough-
mg, I fixed four oxen to a_ strong plough, and
turned up soil that had not seen the sun for many,
many long years. Another soaking rain came very
soon after, and went, at once, to the bottom of my
ploughing, instead of being carried away instantly by
evaporation. I then harrowed the ground down
level, in order to keep it mozst as long as I could ;
for the sun now began to be the thing most dr eaded.

48. In the meanwhile I was preparing my ma-
nure. There was nothing of the kind visible upon
the place. But, 1 had the good luck to follow a
person, who appears not to have known much of
the use of brooms. By means of sweeping and
raking and scratching in and round the house, the
barn, the stables, the hen roost, and the court and
yard, I got together about four hundred bushels of
not very bad turnip manure. This was not quite
"60 bushels to an acre for my seven acres; or,
THREE GALLONS to every square rod. ;

49. However, though I made use of these beg-
garly means, I would not be understood to recom-
mend the use of such means to others. On the
contrary, I should have preferred good and clean
Jand and plenty of manure; but, of this I shall
speak again, when I have given an account of the
Manner of Sowzng and of Transplanting.

Chap. IT. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 84

Mannner of Sowing. *

50. Thus fitted out with land and manure, I sei
to the work of sowing, which was performed, with
the help of two ploughs and two pair of oxen, on
the 25th, 26th, and 27th of June. The ploughman
put the ground up into little ridges, having two
furrows on each side of the ridge; so that every
ridge consisted of four furrows, or turnings over of
the plough; and the tops of the ridges were about
four feet from each other ; and, as the ploughing
was performed to a great depth, there was, of
course, a very deep gutter between every two
ridges.

51. I took care to have the manure placed so as
to be under the middle of each ridge ; that is to say,
just beneath where my seed was to come. I had,
but a very small quantity of seed as well as of ©
manure. This seed I had, however, brought from
home, where it was raised by a neighbour, on whom
¥ could rely, and I had,no faith in any other. So
that I was compelled to bestow it on the ridges
with a very parsimonious hand, not having, I be-
lieve, more than four pounds to sow on the seven
acres. It was sown principally in this manner : aman
went along by the side of each ridge, and put down
two or three seeds in places at about ten inches
from each other, just drawing a little earth over,
and pressing it on the seed, in order to make it
vegetate quickly before the earth became too dry.
This is always a good thing to be done, and espe-
cially in dry weather and under a hot sun. Seeds
are very small things ; and thoug#f when we see
them covered over with the earth, we conclude
that the earth must touch them closely, we shouid
remember, that a very small cavity is sufficient te
keep them untouched nearly all round, in which
case, under a hot sun, and near the surface, they

| *

$2 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. | , Part &

are sure to perish, or, at least, to lie long, and
until rain come, before they start. 3

52. I remember a remarkable instance of this
in sowing some turnips to transplant at Botley.
The whole of a piece of grotind was sown broad-
cast. My gardener had been told to sow in beds,
that we might go in to weed the plants; and,
having forgotten this ‘till after sowing, he clapped
down his ine, and divided the plot into beds by
treading very hard a little path at the distance of
every four feet. The weather was very dry, and
the wind very keen. It continued so for three.
weeks ; and, at the end of that time, we had scarcely
a turnip in the beds, where the ground had been
left raked over; but, in the paths we had an abun-
dance, which grew to be very fine, and which,
when transplanted, made part of a field which bore
thirty-three tons to the acre, and which, as a whole |
* field, was the first field I ever saw in my life.

53. I cannot help endeavouring to press this
fact upon the reader. Squeezing ‘down the earth
makes it touch the seed in all its parts, and then it
will soon vegetate. It is for this reason, that bar-
ley and oat fields should be rolled, if the weather
be dry ; and, indeed, that all seeds should be press-
ed down, if the state of the earth will admit of it.

54. This mode of sowing is neither tedious nor
expensive. Two men sowed the whole of my se-
ven acres in the three days, which, when we con-
sider the value of the crop, and the say ing in the
after culture, is really not worth mentioning. I do
not think, that any sowing by drill is so good, and,
in the end, on” as this. Drills miss very
often in the soWings of such small seeds. Howe-
ver, the thing may be done by hand ina less pre-
cise manner. One man would have sown the se-
ven. acres in a day, by just scattering the seeds a-
Jong on the top of the ridge, where they might have
been buried with a rake, and pressed down by a

*

Chap. Il. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 835

spade or shovel or some other flat instrument. A
slight roller to take two ridges at once, the horse
walking in the gutter between, is what I used to
make use of when I sowed on ridges; and, who can
want such a roller in America, as long as he has an
axe and an auger in his house? Indeed this whole
matter is such a trifle, when compared with the
importance of the object, that it is not to be belie-
ved, that any man will think it worth the smallest
notice as counted amongst the means of obtaining
that object.

@ 55. Broad-cast sowing will, however, probably,

be, in most cases, preferred ; and, this mode of
sowing is pretty well understood from general ex-
perience. What is required here are, that the
ground be well ploughed, finely harrowed, and the
seeds thinly and evenly sown over it, to the amount
of about two pounds of seed to anacre ; but, then,
if the weather be dry, the seed should, by all
means, be rolled down. When I have spoken of
the after culture, I shall compare the two methods
of sowing : the ridge and the broad-cast, in order
that the reader may be the better able to say, which
of the two is entitled to the preference.

ee

After Culture.

56. It relating to what I did in this respect, i
shall take it for granted, that the reader will under-
stand me as describing what | think ought to be
done. ;

57. When my ridges were laid up, and my seed
was sown, my neighbours thought, that there was
an end of the process ; for, they all said, that, if
the seed ever came up, being upon those high
ridges, the plants never could live under the scorch-
ing of the sun. I knew, that this was an erroneous
notion ; but, I had not much confidence in the

=
—

Boy
i ae
ol

84 * RUTA BAGA CULTURE. ih Part ie)

powers of the soil, poor as it evidently: was, and
scanty as. was my supply of manure. —

58. The plants, however, made their appear-
ance with great regularity ; no fly came to anno
them. The moment they were fairly up, we abt
with a very small hoe and took out all but one in
each ten or eleven or twelve inches, and thus left
them singly placed. ‘This is a great point; for
they begin to rob one another at a very early age ;
and, if left two or three weeks to rob each other, |
before they are set oyt singly, the crop will be di-
minished one half. To set the plants out in thie
way was a very easy and quickly- -performed busi-
ness ; but, it is a business to be left to no one but a
careful man. Boys can never safely be trusted with
the deciding, at discretion, whether you shall have
a large crop or a small one.

59. But, now, something else began to appear as |
well as turnip-plants ; for, all the long grass and
weeds haying dropped their seeds the summer be-
fore, and, probably, for many summers, they now
came forth to demand their share of that nourish-
ment, produced by the fermentation, the dews, and
particularly by the Sun, which shines on all alike.
T never saw a fiftieth part of so many weeds in my
life upon a like space of ground. Their little seed
leaves, of various hues, formed a perfect mat on
the g eround. And now it was, that my wide ridges,
which had appeared to my neighbours to be so very
singular and so unnecessary, were absolutely ne-
cessary. First we went with a hoe, and hoed the
tops of the ridges, about six inches wide. There
were all the plants, then, clear and clean at once,
with an expense of about half a day’s work to an
acre. Then we came, in our Botley fashion, with
a single horse plough, took a furrow from the side
of one ridge going up the field, a furrow from the
other ridge coming down, then another furrow
from the same side of the first idge going up, and

Chap. HU, RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 83

oy Py F
gree

another from the same side of the other ridge coming

down. In the taking away of the last two furrows,

we went within three enches of the turnip-plants.—

‘Thus there was a ridge over the original gutter.

Then we turned these furrows back again to the
turnips. And, having gone, in this manner, over
the whole piece, there it was with not a weed alive.

init. All killed by the sun, and the field as clean

and as fine as any garden that ever was seen.
60. ‘hose who know the effect of tillage between

_ growing plants, and especially if the earth be moved

deep ; and, indeed, what American does not know

what such effect is, seeing that, without it, there
would be no Indian Corn ; those that reflect on this
effect, may guess at the effect on my Ruta Baga
plants, which soon gave me by their appearance
a decided proof, that Tux’s principles are always

_ true, in whatever soil or climate applied.

61. It was now a very beautiful thing to see, a
regular, unbroken line of fine, fresh-looking plants
upon the tops of those wide ridges, which had been
thought to be so very whimsical and unnecessary.
But, why have the ridges so very wide? This
question was not new to me, who had to answer
it a thousand times in England. It is because you
cannot plough deep and clean in a narrower space
than four feet; and, it 1s the deep and clean
ploughing that I regard as the surest means ofa
large crep, especially in poor, or indifferent ground.
it is a great error to suppose, that there is any
ground lost by these wide intervals. My crop of
thurty-three tons, or, thirteen hundred and twenty
bushels, to the acre, taking a whale field together,
had the same sort of intervals, while my neigh-
bours, with two feet intervals, never arrived at two-
thirds of the weight of that crop. There is no
ground lost; for, any one who has a mind to do it,
may satisfy himself, that the lateral roots of any fine
Jarge turnip will extend more than sex feet from the

<

36 ; UTA BAGA CULTURE. Part: f

bulb of the plant. The intervals are full of these

roots, the breaking of which and’ the moving of
which, as in the case of Indian Corn, gives new

food and new roots, and produces wonderful effects

on the plants. Wide as my intervals were, the

leaves of some of the plants very nearly touched
those of the plants on the adjoining ridge, before

the end of their growth ; and I have had them fre-

quently meet in this way in England. They would

always do it here, if the ground were rich and the
tillage proper. hey) then, can the intervals be
too wide, if the plants occupy the interval? And.
how can any ground be lost, if every inch be full
of roots and shaded by leaves?

62. After the last-mentioned operation my plants re-
mained till the weeds had agaim made their appear-
ance ; or, rather, “till anew brood had started up,
when this was the case, we went with the hoe again
and cleaned the tops of the ridges as before. The
weeds, under this all-powerful sun, instantly perish.
Then we repeated the former operation with the
one horse plough. After this nothing was done
but to pull-up now and then a weed, which had es-
caped the hoe ; for, as to the plough share, nothing
escapes that.

63. Now, I think no farmer can discover in this
process any thing more difficult, more trouble-
some, more expensive, than in the process abso-
lutely necessary to the obtaining of a crop of Indian
Corn. And yet, I will venture to say, that, in any
$and, capable of bearing fifty bushels of Corn upon
an acre, more than a thousand bushels of Ruta
Baga may, in the above-described manner, be
raised.

64. In the Browd: Cast method the after culture
must, of course, be copfined to hoeing, or, as Tutt
calls it, scrdtehing. In England, the’ hoer goes in
when the plants are about four inches high, and
hoes all the ground, setting out the plants i about

Chap If. RUTA BAGA CULTURE: © 87
etghteen inches apart; and, if the ground be at all
foul, he is obliged to go in again in about a month
afterwards, to hoe the ground again. This is all
that is done ; and a very poor all it is, as the crops,
en the very best ground, es i ed with the ridged
Crops, sk vale show.

tf

. Transplanting.

. 65. This is a third mode of cultivating the Rura
~ Baca; and, in certain cases, far preferable to ei-
ther of the two others. My aree crops at Botley
were from roots transplanted. I resorted to this
mode in order to insure a crop in spite of the Fly ;

_ but, I amof opinion, that it is, in all cases, the best

“mode, provided hands can be obtained in sufficient

wanber just for a few days, or weeks, as the quan-
tity may be, when the land and the plants are
=

66. Much light is thrown on matters ‘of this
sort by describing what. one has done one’s-self re-
lating to them. "This. is + “practice at once ; or, af
least, it comes much nearer to it than any instruc-
tions possibly can.

67. It was accident that led me to the practice.
Tn the summer, of 1812, I had a piece of Ruta Ba-
ga in the middle of a field, or, rather, the piece
occupied a part of the field, having a crop of car-
rots on the one side and a crop of mangle wurtzle
on the other side. On the 20th of July the Tur-
nips, or rather those of them which had escaped
the Fly, began to grow pretty well. They had
been sown in drills.; and I was anxious to fill. up
the spaces, which had been occasioned by the. ra-
vages of the Fly. I, therefore, took the supernu-
merary plants, which I found in the unattacked

&% RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part T.

places, and filled up the rows: by transplantation,
sige f did also in two other fields.

. The Turnips, thus transplanted, grew, and
mm on were pretty good; but, they were very
far inferior to those which had retained their ori-
ginal places. But,it happened, that on oneside of
the above-mentioned piece of turnips, there was a
vacant space of about a yard in breadth. When
the ploughman had finished ploughing between the
rews of turnips, I made him plough up that spare
ground very deep, and upon it I niade my gardener
go and plant two rows of turnips. These became
the largest and finest of the whole piece, though
transplanted two days later than those which had
been transplanted in the rows throughout the piece.
The‘cause of this remarkable difference I, at once,
saw, was, that these had been put into newly-plough-
ed ground; for, though I had not read much of
Tur at the time here referred to, I knew, from
ihe experience of my whole life, that seeds as well
as plants ought always to go into ground as recent-_
ly moved:as possible ; because at every moving of
the earth, and particularly at every turning of it,.
anew process of fermentation takes place, fresh
exhalations arise, and asupply of the food of plants
is thus prepared for the newly-arrived guests.—
Mr. Curnwes, the Member of Parliament, though
a poor thing as to public matters, has published not
a bad book on agriculture. It is not bad, because
it contains many authentic accounts of experiments
made by himself; though I never can think of his
book without thinking, at the same time, of the gross
and scandalous plagiarisms, which he has commit-
ted upon Tutt. Without mentioning particulars,
the ** Honourable Member” will, 1 am sure, know
what I mean, if this page should ever have the ho-
nour to fall under his eye ; and he will, I hope; re-
pent, and give proof of his repentance, by a resta-~
ration of the property to the right owner. © :

‘Chap. HH. ‘RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 89

69: However, Mr. Curwen, in his book, gives
‘an account of the wonderful effects of moving. the
ground between plants in rows ;- and he tells us of
an experiment, which he made, and which proved,
that from ground just ploughed, in a very dry time,
an exhalation of many tons weight, per acre, took
place, during the first twenty-four hours after
ploughing,- and of a less and less number of tons,
during the three or four succeeding. twenty-four
hours ; that, in the course of about a week, the
exhalation ceased’; and that, during the whole pe-
riod, the ground, though in the same field, which
had not been ploughed when the other ground ‘was,
exhaled not.an ounce! ©When I read this in Mr.
Curwewn’s book, which was before I had read Turn,
I called to mind, that, having once dug the ground
between some rows of part of a plot of cabbages in
my garden, in order to plant some late peas, I per-
ceived (it was in a dry time) the cabbages, the next
morning, in the part recently dug, with big drops
of dew hanging on the edges of the leaves, and in
the other, or undug part of the plot, no drops at
all. 1 had forgotten the fact *till T read Mr. Cur-
wen ; and I never knew. the.cause ’till 1 read the
real Father of English Husbandry. .

70. From this ‘digression I return to the ity,
first of my English transplanting. I saw, at once,
that the only way to insure a crop of turnips was
by transplantation. The next year, therefore, i
prepared a field of jive acres and another of
twelve. I made ridges, in the magner described
for sowing; and, on the 7th of June, in the first
field, and on the 20th of July, in the second field,
I planted my plants. _1 ascertained to an exactness,
that there were thirty-three tons to an acre, through-
out the whole seventeenacres. After this, I never
used any other method. I never saw above half
as great a crop in any other person’s land; and,
though we read of. mu greater -in agricultural

8

é
90 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part f. °

prize reports, they must have been of the extent of
w single. acre, or something in that way. In my
usual order, the ridges four feet asunder, and the
plants a foot asunder on the ridge, there are. ten
thousand, erght hundred and thirty turnips on the

acre of eround, and, therefore, for an acre to weigh —_
thirty-three tons, each turnip must weigh very near-
ty seven pounds. After the time here spoken of, I
had an acre or two at the end of a large field, trans-
planted on the 13th of July, which probably weigh-
ed fifty tons an acre. I delayed to have them weigh-
ed ’till a fre happened in some of my farm. build-
ings, which produced a further delay, and so the
thing was not done at all; but, 1 weighed one wagon
load, the turnips of which averaged eleven pounds
each; and, several weighed fourteen pounds each,
My very largest upon Long Island weighed twelve
pounds and ahalf. In all these cases, as well here
as in England, the produce was from transplanted,
plants ; though, at Hyde Park, I have many tur-
nips of. more than ten pounds weight each from sowz
plants, some of which, on account of the great per-
fection in their qualities, I have selected, and am
now planting out, for seed.

71. I will now give afull account of uty transplant- -
ing at Hyde Park. Ina part of the ground, which
was put into ridges and sown, I scattered the seed
along very thinly upon the top of the ridge. But,
however thinly you may attempt to scatter such
small seeds, there will always be too many plants,
if the tillage be good and the seed good also. I
suffered these plants to stand as they came up ;
and, they stood much too long, on account of my
want of hands, or, rather, my want of time to at-
tend to give my directions in the transplanting ;
and, indeed, my example too ; for, 1 met not with
a man who knew how to fix a plant in the ground ;
and, strange as it may appear, more than half the
pulk of crop depends on a little, trifling, contempti-

Chap. I. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. OF

ble twist of the setéing stick, or dibble ; a thing very

_ well known to all gardeners in the case of cabba-

~ ges, and about which, therefore, I will give, by and
by, very plain instructions. | ‘

72. Thus puzzled, and not being able to spare ©
time to do the job myself, I was one day looking”

-atmy poor plants, which were daily sufiering for
want ‘of removal, and was thinking how glad I should

“be of one of the Cuurcnerr’s at Botley, who, I
thought to myself, weuld soon clap me out my tur-
nip patch. At this very time, and into the field
itself, came a cousin of one of these CuuRCHERS,
who had lately arrived from England! It was very,
strange ; but literally the fact.

73. To work Churcher and I went, and, with
the aid of persons to pull up the plants and bring
them to us, we planted out about two acres, in the
mornings and evenings of six days; for the weather
was too hot for us to keep out after brexkfast, un-
til about two hours before sunset. There was a
friend staying with me, who helped us plant, and
who did, indeed, as much of the work as either
Churcher or I.

_ 74. The time when this was done was from the
ist to the 28th of August, one Sunday and one day
of no planting, having intermitted. Every body
knows, that this is the very hottest season of the
year; and, as it happened, this was, last summer,
the very driest also. ‘The weather had been hot
and dry from the tenth of August; and so it conti-
nued to the 12th of September. Any gentleman
who has kept a journal of last year, upon Long
Island, will know this to be correct. Who would
have thought to see these plants thrive? Who
would have thought to see them live? The next
day after being planted, their leaves crumbled be-
tween our fingers like the old leaves of trees. In
two days there was no more appearance of a crop
upon the ground than there was of a crop on the.

92 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. “Parts.

turnpike road. But, on the 2d of September, as I

have it in my memorandum book, the plants began

to show, life; and, before the rain came, on the
12th, the piece began to have an air of verdure,
and, indeed, to grow and to promise a good crop,

75. I will speak of the bulk of this crop by. and |

by ; but, 1 must here mention another transplanta-
tion that | made in the latter end of July. A Blok
of ground, occupied by one of my earliest sowing
had the turnips standing on it in rows at cihisen
inches asunder, and at a foot asunder in thes rows.
Towards the middle of July I found, that one half
of the rows must be taken away, or that the whole
would be of little value. Having pulled up the

4

plants, I intended to transplant them (as they say of

bishops) from the garden to the field ; but, | had no
ground ready. However, I did not like to throw
away these plants, which had already bulbs as large
as hen’s eggs. ‘They were carried into the cellar,
where they lay in a heap, till (which would soon
happen in such hot weather) they began to ferment.
This made the most of their leaves turn white.
Unwilling, still, to throw them away, I next laid

them on the grass in front of the house, where they.

got the dews in the night, and they were covered
with a mat during the day, except two days, when
they were. overlooked, or, rather, neglected. The
heat was very great, and, at last, supposing these
plants dead, I did not cover them any more. There
they lay abandoned till the 24th of July, on which day

I began planting cabbages in my field. I then thought,

that | would try the hardiness of a Ruta Baga Plant.
[ took these same abandoned plants, without a mor-
sel of green left about them; planted them in part
of a row of the piece of cabbages; and they, a hun-
dred and. six in number, weighed when they were
taken up in December, nine h undred and. one pounds.
eae of these RIT AAR, weighed twelve pounds and a

Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 95°

76. But, it ought to be observed, that this was
in ground which had been got up in my best man-
ner ; that it had some of the best of my manure ;
and that uncommon pains were taken by myself in
the putting in of the plants. This experiment shows,
what a hardy plant this is; but, I must caution the
reader against a belief, that it is either desirable or

‘prudent to put this quality to so severe a test.

There is no necessity for it, in general ; and, in-
deed, the rule is, that the shorter time the plants
are out of the ground the better.

77. But, as to the business of transplanting,
there is one very material observation to make,
The ground ought to be as fresh; that is to say, as
recently moved by the plough, as possible ; and that
for the reasons before stated. The way I go on is
this: My land is put up into ridges, as described
under the head of manner of sowing. This is done
beforehand. Several days ; or, it may be, a week
or more. When we have our plants and hands all
ready, the ploughman begins and turns zn the ridg-
es; that is to say, ploughs the ground back again,
so that the top of the new ploughed ridge stands
over the place where the channel, or gutter, or
deep furrow, was, before he began. Assoonas he
has finished the first ridge, the planters plant it,
while he is ploughing the second: and so on
throughout the field. That this is not a very tedi-
ous process the reader needs only to be told, that,
in 1816, I had fifty-two acres of Ruta Baga planted in —
this way ; and | think I had more than fifty thousand
bushels. A smart hand will plant half an acre a
day, with a girl or boy to drop the plants for him.
I had a man, who planted an acre a day, many a
time. but, supposing, that a quarter of an acre is:
a day’s work. What are four days’ work when put
in competition with the value of an acre of this in-
valuable root? And what farmer is there, who
has common industry, who would grudge te bend

94 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. - Part I!

his own back eight or twelve days, for the sake of
keeping all his stock through the spring months,
when dry food is loathsome to them,’ and when
grass is by nature denied ?

78. Observing well what has been said about
earth perfectly fresh, and never forgetting this, let
us now talk about the act of planting; the mere
mechanical operation of putting the plant into the
ground. We have a setting-stick, wuich should be
the top of a spade-handle cut off, about ten inches
below the eye. It must be pointed smoothly ; and,
if it be shod with thin iron, that is to say, covered
with an iron sheath, it will work more smoothly,
and do its business the better. At any rate the
point should be nicely smoothed, and so should the
whole of the tool. The planting is performed lke
that of cabbage plants ; but, as | have met with
very few persons, out éf the market gardens and
gentlemen’s gardens in England, who knew how to
plant a cabbage plant, so | am led to suppose, that
very few, comparatively speaking, know how to
plant a turnip plant.

79. You constantly hear people say, that they
watt for a shower, in order. to put out their cabbage
plants. Never was there an error more general
or more complete in all its parts. Instead of rainy
weather being the best time, it is the very worst
time, for this business of transplantation, whether
of cabbages, or of any thing else, from a lettuce
plant to an apple tree. J have proved the fact in
scores upon scores of imstances. ‘The first time
that I bad any experience of the matter was in the
planting out of a plot of cabbages in my garden at
Wilmington, in Delaware. I planted in dry weather,
and, as | had always done, in such cases, | watered
the ‘plants heavily ; but, being called away for a
purpose, I left one row ‘unwatered; and it happetied
that it so continued without my observing it "in
she next day. The sun had so completely scorched

Chap. II. _ RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 95

it by the next night, that, when I repeated my
watering of the rest, | left it, as being unworthy of
my care, intending to plant some other thing in the
ground occupied by this dead row. But, in a few
days, | saw, that it was not dead. It grew soon
afterwards ; and, in the end, the cabbages of my
dead row were not only larger, but earlier in loav-
ing, than any of the rest of the plot.

80. The reason is this: if plants are put into wet
earth, the setting-stick squeezes the earth up
against the tender fibres in a mortar-like state. The
sun comes and bakes this mortar into a sort of glazed
clod. The hole made by the stick is also a smooth
sided hole, which retains its form, and presents, on
every side, an impenetrable substance to the fibres.
In short, such as the hole is made, such it, in a
great measure remains, and the roots are cooped
up in this sort of well, instead of having a-free
course left them to seek their food on every side.
Besades this, the fibres get, from being wet when
planted, into a small compass. They all cling
about the tap root, and are stuck on to it by the
wet dirt, in which state, if a hot sun follow, they
are all baked together in a lump, and cannot stir.
On the contrary, when put into ground unwet,
the reverse of all this takes place ; and, the fresh
earth will, under any sun, supply moisture in quan-
tity sufficient.

81. Yet, in July and August, both in England and
America, how many thousands and thousands are
waiting for a shower to put out their plants! And,
then, when the long-wished-for shower comes, they
must plant upon stale ground, for they have it dug
ready, as it were for the purpose of keeping them
company in waiting for the shower. Thus all the
fermentation, which took place upon the digging,
is gone ; and, when the planting has once taken
place, farewell to the spade! For, it appears to be
aprivilege of the Indian Corn to receive something

96 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part J.

like good usage after being planted. It is very
strange, that it should have been thus; for, what
reason is there for other plants not enjoying a simi-
lar benefit; The reason is, that they will produce
something without it ; and the Indian Corn will posi-
tively produce nothing ; for which the Indian Corn
is very much to be commended. As an instance of
this effect of deeply moving the earth between
growing crops, I will mention, that, in the month
of June, and on the 26th of that month, a very kind
neighbour of mine, in whose garden I was, showed
me a plot of Green Savoy Cabbages, which he had
planted in some ground as rich as ground could be.
He had planted them about three weeks before ;
and they appeared very fine indeed. In the seed
bed, from which he had taken his plants, there
remained about a hundred ; but, as they had been
left as of no use, they had drawn each other up, in
company with the weeds, *till they. were about
eighteen inches high, having only a starved leaf, or
two, upon the top of each. I asked my neighbour
to give me these plants, which he readily did ; but
begged me not to plant them, for, he assured me,
that they would come to nothing. Indeed, they
were a ragged lot; but, I had no plants of my own
sowing more than twe inches high. I, therefore,
took these plants and dug some ground for them
between some rows of scarlet-blossom beans, which
mount upon poles. 1 cut a stick on purpose, and
‘put the plants very deep in the ground. My beans
came off in August, and then the ground was well
ug between the rows of cabbages. In September,
mine had far surpassed the prime plants of my
neighbour. And, in the end, | believe, that ten of
my cabbages would have weighed more than @
hundred of his, leaving out the stems in both cases.
But, his had remained uncultivated after planting.
The ground, battered down by the successive heavy
rains, had become hard as brick. All the stores of

Chap. IT. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 97

food had been locked up, and lay in a dormant.
state. There had been no renewed fermentations, -
and no exhalations. iP
- 82. Having now said what, I would fain hope,
will convince every reader of the folly of waiting
for a shower in order to transplant plants of any
sort, | will now speak of the mere act of planting
more particularly than | have hitherto spoken.

83. The hole is made sufficiently deep ; deeper
than the length of the root does really require ;
but, the root should not be bent at the point, if it
can be avoided. Then, while one hand holds the
plant, with its root in the hole, the other hand ap-
plies the setting-stick to the earth on one side of the
hole, the stick being held in such a way as to form
a sharp triangle with the plant. Then pushing
the stick down, so that ets point goes a little deeper
than the point of the root, and giving it a little twist,
it presses the earth against the point, or bottom of
the root. And thus all is safe, and the plant is sure
to grow.

84. The general, and almost universal fault, is,
that the planter, when he has put the root into the.
hole, draws the earth up against the upper part of
the root, or stem, and, if he presses pretty well
there, he thinks that the planting is well done.
But, it is the pownt of the root, against which the
earth ought to be pressed, for there the fibres are ; -
and, if they do not towch the earth closely, the plant
will not thrive. The reasons have been given in
Paragraphs 51 and 52, in speaking of the sowing of
seeds, itis the same in all cases of transplanting or
planting. ‘Prees for instance, will be sure to grow,
if you sft the earth, or pulverize it very finely,
and place it carefully and closely about the roots.
When we plant a tree, we see all covered by tum-
bling in the earth ; and, it appears whimsical to
suppose, that the earth does not touch all the roots.
But, the fact is, that, unless great pains be taken,

9

98 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part J.

there will be many cavities in the hole where the
tree is planted ; and, in whatever places the earth
does not closely touch the root, the root will mould,
become cankered, and will lead to the producing of
a poor tree. “ oes

85. When I began transplanting in fields in Eng-
land, 1 had infinite difficulty in making my planters
attend to the directions, which | have here given.
** The point of the stick to the pornt of the root,” was
my constant cry. As I could not be much with
my work-people, | used, in order to try whether
they had planted properly, to go after them, and
now-and-then take the tip of a leaf between my
finger and thumb. ifthe plant resisted the pull, so
as for the bit of leaf to come away, } was sure,
that the plant was well fixed; but, if the pull
brought up the plant out of the ground ; then I was
sure, that the planting was not well done. After
the first field or two, [ had no trouble. My work
was as well done, as if the whole had been done by
myself. My planting was done chiefly by young
women, each of whom would plant half an acre a
day, and their pay was ten pence sterling a day.
What a shame, then, for any man to shrink at the
trouble and labour of such a matter! Nor, let it be
imagined, that these young women were poor,
miserable, ragged, squalid creatures. They were
just the contrary. On a Sunday they appeared in
their wizie dresses, and with silk umbrellas over

their heads. Their constant labour afforded the _|

means of dressing well, their early rising and exer-
cise gave them health, their habitual cleanliness
and neatness, for which the women of the South of
England are so justly famed, served to aid in the
completing of theirappearance, which was that of
fine rosy-cheeked country girls, fit to be help-mates,
and not a burden, of their future husbands.

86. But, at any rate, what can be said for a man
that thinks too. much of such a piece of labour ?

Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 99

The earth is extremely grateful ; but it must and
will have something to be grateful for. As far as
my little experience has enabled me to speak, I
find no want of willingness to learn in any of the
American workmen. Ours, in England, are apt to
be very obstinate, especially if getting a little old.
They do not like to be taught any thing. They
say, and they think, that what their fathers did was
best. To tell them, that it is your affair, and not
theirs is nothing. To tell them, that the loss, if
any, will fall upon you and not upon them, has very
little weight. They argue, thet, they being the
real doers, ought to be the best judges of the mode
of doing. And, indeed, in most cases, they are, and
go about their work with wonderful skill and
judgment. But, then, itis difficult to induce them
cordially to do any thing new ; or any old thingina
new way; and the abler they are as workmen, the
more untractable they are, and the more difficult to
be persuaded, that any one knows any thing, relating
to farming aflairs, better than they do. It was this
difficulty that made me resort to the employment
of young women in the most important part of my
farming, the providing of immense quantities of
cattle-food. But, | do not find this difficulty here,
where no workmen are obstinate, and where, too,
ail one’s neighbours rejoice at one’s success, which is
by no means the case amongst the farmers in
England.

&87. Having now given instructions relative to
the business of transplanting of the Ruta Bagu, let
us see, whether it be not preferable to either the
ridge-sowing method, or to the bread-cast method.

88. In the first place, when the seed is sown on
the ground where the plants are to come to per-
fection, the ground, as we have seen in Paragraph
40 and Paragraph 47, must be prepared early in
June, at the latest; but, in the transplanting me-
thod, this work may be put off, if need be “till

100 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part f.

early in August, as we have seen in Paragraphs 74
and 75. However, the best time for transplanting
is about the 26th of July, and this gives a month
for preparation of land, more than is allowed in the
sowing methods. This, of itself, isa great matter ;
but, there are others of far greater importance.

89. This transplanted crop may follow another —

crop on the same land. Early cabbages will loave
and be away; early peas will be ripe and off ;
nay, even wheat, and all grain, except buck-
wheat, may be succeeded by Ruta Baga trans-
planted. I had crops to succeed Potatoes, Kidney-
Beans, White Peas, Onions, and even Indian Corn,

gathered to eat green; and, the reader will please —

to bear in mind, that I did not sow, or plant, any
of my jirst crops, just mentioned, till the month
of June. What might a mando, then, who is in
a state to begin with his first crops as soon as he
pleases! Who has his. land all. in order, and his
manure ready to be applied!

90. Another great advantage of the transplant-
ing method is, that it saves almost tae whole of
the after culture. There is no hoeing ; no thin-
ning of the plants ; and not more than one plough-
ing between the ridges. ‘This is a great conside-
ration, and should always be thought of, when we
are talking of the trouble of transplanting. The
turnips which I have mentioned in Paragraphs 72
and 73 had no after culture of any sort; for they
soon spread the ground over with their leaves ;
and, indeed, after July very few weeds made their
appearance. ‘The season for their coming~up is
passed ; and, as every farmer well knows, if there
be no weeds up at the end of July, very few will
come that summer.

91. Another advantage of the transplanting me-
thod is, that you are sure that you have your right
number of plants, and those regularly placed.
For, in spite of all you can do in sowing, there

Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 101

will be deficiencies and irregularities. The seed
may not come up, in some places. The plants
may, in some places, be destroyed in their infant
state. They may, now and then, be cut off with
the hoe. The best plants may sometimes be cut
up and the inferior plants left to grow. And, in
the broad-cast niethod, the irregularity and uncer-
tainty must be obvious to every one. None of
these injurious consequences can arise in the
transplanting method. Here, when the: work is
once well done, the crop is certain, and all cares
are at.an end.

92. In taking my leave of this part of my trea-
tise, I must observe, that it is useless, and, indeed,
unjust, for any man to expect success, unless he
attend to the thing himself, at least ’till he has made
the matter perfectly familiar to his work-people.
To neglect any part of the business is, in fact, to
neglect the whole ; just as much as neglecting to
put up one of the sides of a building, is to neglect
~ the whole building. Were it a matter of trifling
moment, personal attention might be dispensed
with ; but, as I shall, I think, clearly show, this
is a matter of very great moment to every farmer.
The object is, not merely to get roots, but to get
them of a large size; for, as I shall show, there
is an amazing difference in this. And, large
roots are not to be gotten without care, which, by
the bye, costs nothing. Besides, the care bestow-
ed in obtaming this crop, removes all the million
of cares and vexations of the winter and spring
months, when bleatings everlasting din the farmer
almost out-of his senses, and make him ready to
knock the brains out of the clamorous flock, when
he ought to feel pleasure in the filling of their
bellies.

93. Having now done with the different modes
of cropping the ground with Ruta Baga, I will,
as I proposed in Paragraph 49, speak about the

Q*

to2 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I.

preparation of the land generally; and in doing

this, I shall suppose the land to have borne a good ©

crop of wheat the preceding year, and, of course,
to be in good heart, as we call it in England.

94. I would plough this ground in the fall into
ridges four feet asunder. The ploughing should

be very deep, and the ridges well laid up. In |
this situation it would, by the successive frosts —
and thaws be shaken and broken fine as powder ~

by March or April. In April, it should be turned
back ; always ploughing deep. A crop of weeds
would be well set upon it by the first of June,
when they should be smothered by another turn-
ing back. Then, about the third week in June,
I would carry in my manure, and fling it along in

the trencies or furrows. After this 1 would fol- |

ee eae ne

low the turning back for the sowing, as is directed ©
in Paragraph 50. Now, here are four ploughings. —

And what is the cost of these ploughings? My
man, a black man, a native of this island, ploughs
with his pair of oxen and no driver an acre and «@
half a dey, and his oxen keep their flesh extreme-
ly well upon the refuse of the Ruta Baga which I
send to market. What is the cost then? And,
what a fine state the ground is thus brought into!
A very different thing indeed is it to plough hard
ground from what it is to plough ground im this fine,
broken state. Besides, every previous ploughing,

especially deep ploughing, is equal to a seventh ©

part of an ordinary coat of manure.

95. In the broad-cast method I would give the
same number of previous ploughings, and at the
same seasons of the year. 1 would spread the
manure over the ground just before I ploughed
it for sowing. Then, when I ploughed for the

sowing, | would, if I had only one pair of oxen, |

plough about half an acre, harrow the ground,
sow it immediately, and roll it with a light roller,
which a little horse might draw, in order to press

Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 103

the earth about the seeds and cover them too.—

-There need be no harrowing after sowing. We

-never do it in England. The roller does all very

completely, and the sowing upon the fresh earth
will, under any sun, furnish the moisture sufficient.
T once sowed, on ridges, with a Bennert’s drill,
and neither harrowed nor rolled, nor used any
means at all of covering the seed ; and yet I had
plenty of plants and a very fine crop of turnips.
I sowed a piece of white turnips, broad cast, at
Hyde Park, last summer, on the eleventh of Au-
gust, which did very well, though neither har-
rowed nor rolled after being sown. But, in both
these cases, there came rain directly after the

sowing, which battered down the seeds ; and which

rain, indeed, it was, which prevented the rolling ;
for that cannot take place when the ground is wet;
because, then, the earth will adhere to the roller,

which will go on growing in size like a rolling

snow-ball. To harrow after the sowing is sure
to do mischief. We always bury seeds too deep ;
and, in the operation of harrowing, more than half
the seeds of turnips must be destroyed, or ren-
dered useless. If a seed lies beyond the proper
depth, it will either remain in a quiescent state,
until some movement of the earth bring it up to
the distance from the surface, which will make it
vegetate, or, it will vegetate, and come up later
than the rest of the plants. It will be feebler also;
and it will never be equal to a plant, which has
come from a seed near the surface.

96. Before I proceed further, it may not be a-
miss to say something more respecting the burying
of seed, though it may here be rather out of place.
Seeds buried below their proper depth, do not
come up ; but, many of them are near enough to
the surface, sometimes, to vegetate, without coming
up ; and then they die. This is the case, in many
instances, with more than one half of the seed that

104 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I.

is sown. But, if seeds be buried so deep, that

they do not even vegetate ; then they do not die ;_

and this is one cause, though not the only cause, of
our wondering to see weeds come up, where we
are sure, that no seeds have fallen for many years.
At every digging, or every ploughing, more or less
of the seeds, that have formerly been buried, come
up near the surface ; and then they vegetate. 1
have seen many instances in proof of this fact ; but,
the particular instance, on which I found the posi-
tiveness of my assertion was one of Parsnip seed.
It is avery delicate seed. It will, if beat out, keep
only one year. 1 had a row of fine seed parsnips.
in my garden, many of the seeds of which fell in
the gathering. The ground was dug in the fall,
and, when | saw it full of Parsnips in the spring, |
only regarded this as a proof, that Parsnips might
be sown in the fall, though | have since proved, that
that is a very bad practice.. The ground was dug
again, and again, for several successive years; and
there was always a crop of Parsnips, withouta grain
of seed ever having been sown on it. But, lest any
one should take it into his head, that this is a most
delightful way of saving the trouble of sowing, I
ought to state, that the parsnips coming thus at ran-
dom, gave me a great deal more labour, than the
same crop would have given me in the regular way
of sowing. Besides, the fall is not the time to sow,
as my big and white Parsnips, now selling in New-
York market, may clearly show ; seeing that they
were sown in June! And yet, people are flocking
to the Western Countries in search of rich land,
while thousands of acres of such land as I occupy
are lying waste in Long Island, within three hours’
drive of the all-consuming and incessantly increasing
city of New-York!

97. I have now spoken of the preparation of the
land for the reception of seeds. As to the prepara-
tion in the case of transplantation, it might be just

=

Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 105

the same as for the sowing on ridges. But, there
might, in this case, be one more previous ploughing,
always taking care to plough in dry wecther, which
is an observation I ought to have made before.

98. But, why should not the plants, in this case,
succeed some other good crop, as mentioned before ?
1 sowed some early peas (brought from England)
on the 2d of June. [harvested them, quite ripe
and hard, on the 31st of July ; and | had very fine
Rata Baga, some weighing six pounds each, after
the peas. How little is known of the powers of
this soil and climate! My Potatoes were of the
kidney sort, which, as every one knows, is not an
early sort. ‘They were planted on the 2d of June ;
and they were succeeded by a most abundant crop
of Ruta Baga. And, the manure forthe peas and
potatoes served for the Ruta Baga also. In sur-
veying my crops and feeling grateful to the kind
earth and the glorious sun that produce these, to
me, most delightful objects, how often have | turn-
ed, with an aching heart, towards the ill-treated
Englishmen, shut up in dungeons by remorseless
tyrants, while not a word had been uttered in their
defence by, and while they were receiving not one
cheering visit or comforting word from, Sir FrRan-
crs Burpert, who had been the great immediate
cause of their incarceration !

99. As to the quaniity and sort of manure to be
used in general, it may be the same as for a sowing
of Rye, or of Wheat. I should prefer ashes ; but,
my large crops in England were on yard-dung, first
thrown into a heap, and afterwards turned once or
twice, in the usual manner as practised in England.
At Hyde Park I had nothing but rukings up about
the yard, barn, &c. as described before. What I
should do, and what I shall do this year, is, to make
ashes out of dirt, or earth, of any sort, not very
stony. Nothing is so easy as this, especially in this
fine climate. I see people go with their wagons

106 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I.

five miles for Soper’s ashes ; that is to say, spent
ushes, which they purchase at the landing place
(for they come to the island in vessels) at the rate
of about five dollars for forty bushels. Add the
expense of land-carriage, and the forty bushels do
not cost less than tex dollars. 1 am of opinion,
that, by the burning of earth, as much manure may
be got upon the land for half a dollar. 1! made
an experiment last summer, which convinces me,
that, ifthe spent ashes be received as a gift at three
mules distance of land-carriage, they are not a gift
worth accepting of. But, this experiment was upon
a small scale ; and, therefore, 1 will not now speak
acetic on the subject.

100. 1 am now preparing to make: a perfect trial
of these ashés. I have just ploughed up a piece
of ground, in which, a few years ago, Indian Corn
was planted, and produced, as I am assured, only
stalks; and those not more than two feet high. The
eround has, every year since, borne a crop of
weeds, rough grass, and briers, or brambles.. The
piece is about. ten acres: 1 intend’ to have Indian
Corn in it ; and, my manure shall be made on the
spot, and consist of nothing but burnt earth. If!
have a decent crop of Indian Corn on this land, so
manured, it will, I think, puzzle my good neigh-
bours to give a good reason for their going five
miles for spent ashes.

101. Whether | succeed, or Hint: I will give an
account of my experiment. This I know, that I,
in the year 1815, burnt ashes, in one heap, to the
amount of about two hundred English cart-loads,
each load holding about forty bushels. I should not
suppose, that the burning cost me more than jive
dollars ; and there they were upon the spot, in the
very field, where they were used. As to their
effect, [ used them for transplanted Ruta Baga and
Mangle Wurzle, and they produced full as great an
effect as the yard-dung used in the same land. This

Chap. Il. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 107

process of burning earth into ashes, without suffer-
ing the smoke to escape, during any part of the pro-
cess, is a discovery of Irish origin. It was pointed
out to me by Mr. Witiiam Gauntietr of Win-
chester, late a commissary with the army in Spain.
To this gentleman I also owe, England owes, and I
hope America will owe, the best sort of hogs, that,
I believe, are in the world. I was wholly unac-
- quainted with Mr. Gauntterr, ’till the summer of
1815, when happening to pass by my farm, he saw
my hogs, cows, &c. and, when he came to my house
he called, and told me, that he had observed, that
I wanted only a good sort of hogs to make my stock
complete. I thought, that | already had the finest in
England ; and I certainly had a very fine breed,
the father of which, with legs not more than about
six inches long, weighed, when he was killed, twen-
ty-seven score, according to our-Hampshire mode of
stating hog meat weight ; or, five hundred and for-
ty pounds. This breed has been fashioned by Mr.
Woops of Woodmancot in Sussex, who has been, I
believe, more than twenty years about it. I
thought it perfection itself; but, I was obliged to
confess, that Mr. GaunrLerr’s surpassed it.

102. Of the earth burning 1 will give an account
in my next Part of this work. Nothing is easier
of performance ; and the materials are every
where to be found.

103. I think, that [ have now pretty clearly given
an account of the modes of sowing and planting and
cultivating the Ruta Baga, and of the preparation
of the land. It remains for me to speak of the
time and manner of harvesting, the quantity of the
crop, and of tie uses of, and the mode of applying
the crop.

108 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part f.
LI

Time and manner of harvesting.

104. This must depend, in some measure, upon
the age of the turnips ; for, some will haye their
full growth earlier than others ; that is to say,
those which are sown first, or traasplanted first,
will be ripe before those which are sown, or trans-
planted latest. I have made ample experiments as
to this matter ; and I will, as in former cases, first
relate what J did ; and then give my opinion as to
what ought to be done.

105. This was a concern in which I could have
no knowledge last fall, never having seen any
turnips harvested in America, and knowing, that,
as to American frosts, English experience was only
likely to mislead ; for, in England, we leave the
roots standing in the ground all the winter, where
we feed them off with sheep, which scoop them out
to the very bottom ; or we pull them as we want
them, and bring them in to give to fatting oxen, to
cows, or to hogs. I had a great opinion of the
hardiness of the Ruta Baga, and was resolved to try
it here, and I did try it upon too large a scale.

106. I began with the piece, the first mentioned
in Paragraph 46. A part of them were taken up
on the 13th of December, after we had had some
pretty hard frosts. ‘The manner of doing the work
was this. We took up the turnips merely by pull-
ing them. The greens had been cut off and given
to cattle before. It required a spade, however,.
just to loosen them along the ridge, into which their
tap-roots had descended very deeply. We dug
holes, at convenient distances, of a square form,
and about a foot deep. We put into each hole a-
bout fifty bushels of turnips, piling them up above
the level of the surface of the land, in a sort of
pyramidical form. When the heap was made, we
scattered over it about a truss of Rye-Straw, and

Se

‘

Chap. Il. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. ~ 109

threw earth over the whole to a thickness of about

a foot, taking care to point the covering at top, in

order to keep out wet. j

107. Thus was a small part of the piece put
up. The 14th of December was a Sunday, a day
that I can find no Gospel precept for devoting to
the throwing away of the fruit cf one’s labours,
and a day which I never will so devote again.
Yowever, I ought to have been earlier. On the
Monday it reined. On the Monday night came a
sharp North-Wester with its usual companion, at
this season, that is to say, a sharp frost. Mesolved
to finish this piece on that day, | borrowed hands
from my neighbours, who are’ always ready to
assist one another. We had about two acres and
a half to do; and it was necessary to employ one
half of the hands to go before the pullers and loosen
the turnips with a spade in the frosty ground.
About ten o'clock, I saw, that we should not finish,
and there was every sign of a hard frost at night.
In order, therefore, to expedite the work, I called
in the aid of those efficient fellow labourers, a pair
of oxen, which, with a good, strong plough, going
up on one side of each row of turnips, took away
the earth close to the bulbs, left them bare on one
side, and thus made it extremely easy to pull them
up. We wanted spades no longer; all our hands
were employed taking up the turnips; and our
job, instead of being half done that day, was com-
pleted by about two o’clock. Well and justly did
Moses order, that the ox should not be muzzled
while he was treading out the corn; for, surely,
no animals are so useful, so docile, so gentile as
these, while they require at our hands so little care
and labour in return !

108. Now, it will be observed, that the turnips
here spoken of, were put up when the ground and
the turnips were frozen. Yet they have kept per-
fectly sound and good; and I am preparing te

10

110 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. - Part I.

plant some of them for seed. I am now writing on
the 10th of April. I send off these turnips to
market every week. The tops and tails and offal
goto the pigs, to ewes and lambs, to a cow, and
working oxen, which all feed together upon this
offal flung out about the barn-yard, or on the grass
ground in the orchard. Before they. have done,
they leave not amorsel. But, of feeding I shall

speak by and by. !

109. The other crop of turnips, I mean those
which were transplanted, as mentioned in Para-
graphs 51 and 52, and which, owing to their being
planted so late in the summer, kept on growing
most luxuriantly ’till the very hard frosts came.

110. We were now got on to the 17th of De-
cember ; and, | had cabbages to put up. Saturday,
Sunday and Monday, the 21st, 22nd and 23rd, we
had very hard frost, as the reader, if he live on this
{sland, will well remember. There came a thaw af-
terwards ; and the transplanted turnips were put up
like the others ; but, this hard frost had pierced |
them too deeply, especially as they were in so
tender and luxuriant a state. Many of these we
find rotted near the neck; and, upon the whole,
they have suffered a loss of about one half. An
acre, left to take their chance in the field, turned out,
like most other games of hazard, a total loss. They
were all rotted.

111. This loss arose wholly from my want of
sufficient experience. I was anxious to neglect no
necessary precaution ; and I was fully impressed,
as I always am, with the advantages of being early.
But, early in December, I lost a week at New-
York; and, though I worried my neighbours half
to death to get at a knowledge of the time of the
hard weather setting in, I could obtain no know-
ledge, on which I could rely, the several accounts
being so different from each other. ‘The general
account was, that there would he no very hard

Chap. Il. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. lit

weather “till after Christmas. I shall know better
another time! Mason Cartwnriaut says, in speak-
ing of the tricks of the English Boroughmongers,
at the ‘‘ glorious Revolation,” that they will never
be able to play the same tricks again; for, that
nations, like rational individuals, are not deceived
twice in the same way.

112. Thus have I spoken of the time and manner
of harvesting as they took place with me. And,
surely, the expense is a mere trifle. Two oxen
and four men would harvest two acres in any clear
day in the latter end of November ; and thus is this
immense crop harvested and covered completely for
about two doliars and ahalf anacre. It is astonish-
ing, that this is never done in England! For, though
it is generally said, that the Ruta Baga will stand any
weather ; I know by experience, that it will not
standany weather. The winter of the year, 1814 ;
that is to say, the months of January and February,
were very cold, and a great deal of snow fell ; and,
in a piece of twelve acres, I had, in the month of
March, two thirds of the turnips completely rotten ;
and these were amongst the finest that | ever grew,
many of them weighing twelve pounds each. Be-
sides, when taken up in dry weather, before the
freezings and thawings begin, the dirt all falls off ;
and the bulbs are clean and nice to be given to
cattle or sheep in the stalls or yards. For, though
we, in general feed off these roots upon the land
with sheep, we cannot, in deep land, always do it.
The land is too wet; and particularly for Ewes and
Lambs, which are, in such cases, brought into a
piece of pasture land, or into a fold-yard, where the
turnips are flung down to them in a dirty state,
just carted from the field. And, again, the land is
very much injured, and the labour augmented, by
carting when the ground is a sort of mud-heap, or
rather, pool. All these inconveniences and inju-
ries would be ayoided by harvesting in a dry day

L412 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. ‘Parti.

in November, if such a day should, by any accident,
be found in England ; but, why not do the work in
October, and sow wheat, at once, in the land ° ?
More on this after cropping another time.
113. In Long Island, and throughout the United
States, where the weather is so’ fine ‘inthe ‘fall :
where every day, from the middle of October to
the end of November, (except a rainy day about
once in 16 days) is as fair as the fairest nv iRiec
in England, and where such a thing as a water-
furrow ina field was never heard of; in such a
soil as this, and under such a climate as this, there
never can arise any difficulty in the way of the
harvesting of turnips in the proper time. 1{ should
certainly do it in November; for, as we have seen,
®a little frost does not affect the bulbs at all. I
would put them in when perfectly dry; make my
heaps of about fifty bushels ; and, when the frost
wupproached, I mean the hard frosts, I would cover |
with corn-stalks, or straw, or cedar boughs, as
many of the heaps as. I thought I should want in
January and February; for, these coverings would
so break the frost, as to enable me to open the
heaps in those severe months. It is useless and
imconvenient to take into barns, or out-houses,. a
yery large quantity ata time. Besides, if left wn-
covered, the very hard frosts will do them harm.
To be sure, this is easily prevented, in the barn,
by throwing a little straw over the heap; but,
being, by the means that I have pointed out, al-
ways kept ready in the field, to bring in a larger
quantity than is used in a week, or thereabouts,
would be wholly unnecessary, besides being trou-
blesome from the great space, which would thus
be occupied.
* 114. Tt is a great advantage in the cultivation of
this crop, that the sowing, or transplanting time,
comes efter all the spring grain and the Indian
Corn are safe in the ground, and before the harvest

Chap. Ii. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 113

of grain begins ; and then again, in the fall, the
taking up of the roots comes after the grain and
corn and buckwheat harvests, and even after the
sowing of the winter grain. In short, it seems
to me, that the cultivation of this crop, in this
country, comes, as it were expressly, to fill up the
unemployed spaces of the farmer’s time; but, if
he prefer standing with his arms folded, during
. these spaces of time, and hearing his flock bleat
themselves half to death in March and April, or
‘have no flock, and scarcely any cattle or hogs,
raise a few loads of yard-dung, and travel five
miles for ashes and buy them dear at the end of
the five miles ; if he prefer these, then, certainly,
1 shall have written on this subject in vain.

Quantity of the Crop.

115. It is impossible for me to say, at preseni.
what quantity of Ruta Baga may be grown on au
acre of land in this island. My three acres of
ridged Turnips, sown on the 26th of June were
very unequal; but, upon one of the acres, there
were six hundred and forty bushels ; 1 mean heaped
bushels ; that is to say, an English statute Bushel
heaped as long as the commodity will lie on.
The transplanted Turnips yielded about four hun-
dred bushels to the acre : but, then, observe, they
were put in a full month too late. This year, |
shall make. a fair trial. :

116. I. have given an account. of my raising,
upon five acres in one field, and twelve acres in
another field, one thousand three hundred and
twenty bushels to an acre, throughout the seven-
teen acres. I have no doubt of equalling that
quantity on this Island, and that, too, upon some
of its poorest and most exhausted land. ‘They tel!

10"

AN

114 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part L.

me, indeed, that the last summer was a remarkably
fine sammer ; so they said at Botley, when I had
my first prodigious crop of RutayBaga. This is
the case in all the pursuits of hfe. The moment.
a man excels those, who ought to be able and
willing to do as well as he; that moment, others
set to work to discover causes for his success
other than those proceeding from himself. Bat,
as I used to tell my neighbours at Botley, ‘* You
‘‘have had the same seasons that I have had. No-
‘‘thing is so wnpartial as weather.” As long as

this sort of observation, or inquiry, proceeds from ©

a spirit of emulation, it may be treated with great
indulgence; but, when it discovers a spirit of envy,
it becomes detestable, and especially in affairs of
agriculture, where the appeal is made to our com-
mon parent, and where no man’s. success can
be injurious to his neighbour, while it must be a
benefit to his country, or the country in which
the success takes place. I must, however, say,
and I say it with feelings of great pleasure, as
well as from a sense of justice, that I have ob-
served in the American farmers no envy of the
kind alluded to; but, on the contrary, the greatest
satisfaction, at my success ; and not the least back-
wardness, but great forwardness, to applaud and
admire my mode of cultivating these crops. Not
so, in England, where the farmers (generally the
most stupid as well as most slavish and most
churlish part of the nation) envy all who excel
them, while they are too obstinate to profit from
the example of those whom they envy. I say
generally ; for there are many most honourable
exceptions ; and, it is amongst that class of men,
that I have my dearest and most esteemed friends ;
men of knowledge, of experience, of integrity,
and of public-spirit, equal to that of the best of
Englishmen in the worst times of oppression. I
would not exchange the friendship of one of these

ee
Chap II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 115

men for that ef all the Lords that ever were cre-
ated, though there are some of them very able
and upright men too.

117. Then, if | may be suffered to digress a lit-
tle further here; there exists, in England, an in-
stitution which has caused a sort of identity of agri-
culture with politics. The Board of Agriculture,
established by Pitt for the purpose of sending spies
about the country, under the guise of agricultural
surveyors, in order to learn the cast of men’s poll-
tics as well as the taxable capacities of their farms
and property; this Board gives no premium or
praise to any but ‘‘ loyal farmers,” who are gene-
rally the greatest fools. 1, for my part, have ne-
ver had any communication with it. It was always
an object of ridicule and contempt with me; but,
I know this to be the rule of that body, which is,
in fact, only a little twig of the vast tree of Cor-
ruption, which stunts and blights and blasts all
that approaches its poisoned purlieu. This Board
has for its Sera! , Mr. Antuur Youne, a man of
great talents, éribed from his good principles, by
this place of five hundred pounds a year. But,
Mr. Youne, though a most able man, is not al-
ways to be trusted. He is a bold asserter ; and
very few of his statements proceed upon actual
experiments. And, as to what this Board has pub-
lished, at the public expense, under the name of
Communications, 1 defy the world to match it as a
mass of illiterate, unintelligible, and useless trash.
The only paper, published by this Board, that I
ever thought worth keeping, was an account of the
produce from a single cow, communicated by Mr.
Cramp, the jail-keeper of the County of Sussex ;
which contained very interesting and wonderful
tacts, properly authenticated, and stated in a clear
manner.

118. Arruur Youne is blind, and never attends
the Board. Indeed, sorrowful to relate, he is be-

116 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I,

come a religious fanatic, and this in so desperate a
degree as to leave no hope of any possible cure.
In the pride of our health and strength, of mind as
well as of body, we little dream of the chances and
changes of old age. Who can read the ‘“ Travels
in France, Spain, and Italy,” and reflect on the pre-
sent state of the admirable writer’s mind, without
feeling some diffidence as to what may happen to
himself!

119. Lorn Harpwicxe, who is now the Presi-
dent of the Board, is aman, not exceeding my ne-
gro, either in experience or natural abilities. A
parcel of court-sycophants are the Vice-Presidents.
Their Committees and Correspondents are a set of
Justices of the Peace, Nabobs become Country-Gen-
tlemen, and Parsons of the worst description. And
thus is this a mere political job ; a channel for the
squandering of some thousands a year of the peo-
ple’s money upon worthless men, who ought to be
working in the fields, or mending ‘‘ His Majesty’s
‘¢ High Ways.”

120. Happily politics, in this country, have no-
thing to do with agriculture ; and here, therefore,
I think I have a chance to be fairly heard. I should,
indeed, have been heard in England ; but, I really
could never bring myself to do any thing tending
to improve the estates of the oppressors of my
country ; and the same consideration now restrains
me from communicating information, on the subject
of timber trees, which would be of immense bene-
fit to England; and which information I shall re-
serve, till their tyranny shall be at an end. Cas-
tlereagh, in the fulness of his stupidity, proposed,
that in order to find employment for ‘the popula-
tion,’ as he insolently called the people of England,
said, that he would set them to dig holes one day
and fill them up the next. I could tell him what to
plant in the holes so as to benefit the country in an
immense degree; but, like the human body in

¥

“~

Chap. H. RUPA BAGA CULTURE. 117

some complaints, the nation would now be really
injured by the communication of what, if it were in
a healthy state, would do it good, and add to its
strength and to all its means of exertion.

121. To return from this digression, I am afraid
of xo bad seasons. The drought, which is the great
enemy to be dreaded in this country, I am quite
prepared for. Give me ground that I can plough
ten or twelve inches deep, and give me Indian Corn
spaces to plough in, and no sun can burn me up.
{have mentioned Mr. Cvurwen’s experiments be-
fore ; or, rather Tutu’s. For, he it is, who made
all the discoveries of this kind. Let any man, just
io try. leave balfa rod-of ground undug from the
month of May to that of October ; and another half
‘rod let him dig and break fine -every ten or fifteen
days. Then, whenever there has been fifteen or
twenty days of good scorching sun, let him go and
dig a hole in each. “ If he does not find the hard
ground dry as dust; and the other moist; then let
him say, that I know nothing about these matters.
So erroneous is the common notion, that ploughing
in dry weather lets inthe dreught !

122. Of course, proceeding upon this fact, which
I state asthe result of numerous experiments, |
should, if visited with long droughts, give one or two
additional ploughings between the crops when
growing. That is all; and, with this, in Long
- Island, I defy all droughts.

123. But, why need I insist upon this effect of
ploughing in dry weather ? Why need I insist on it
in an Indian Corn country ? Who has not seen
fields of Indian Corn locking, to-day, yellow and
sickly, and, in four days hence (the weather being
dry all the while,) looking green and flourishing ;
and this wonderful effect produced merely by the
plough? Why, then, should not the same effect
always proceed from the same cause ? The deeper
you plough the greater the effect, however ;. for

*

118 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part[,

there is a greater body of earth to exhale from,
and to receive back the tribute of the atmosphere.
Mr. Curwen tells us of a piece of cattle-cabbage.
Ina very dry time in July, they looked so yellow
and blue, that he almost despaired of them. He
sent in his ploughs ; and a gentleman, who had
seen them when the ploughs went in on the Mon-
day, could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw
them on the next Saturday, though it had continued
dry all the week. |

124. To perform these summer ploughings, in
this Island, is really nothing. The earth is so light
and in such fine order, and so easily displaced and
replaced. I used one horse for the purpose last
summer, and a very slight horse indeed. .4n oz is,
however, better for this work; and this may be
accomplished by the use of a collar and two traces,
or by a single yoke and two traces. TuLt recom-
mends the latter ; and I shall try it for Indian Corn
as well as for Turnips.* Horses, if they are strong

* Since the above paragraph was written, I have made a
Single Ox- Yoke ; and, I find it answer excellently well. Now,
my work is much shortened ; for in forming ridges, two Oxen
are awkward. ‘They occupy a wide space, and one of them
is obliged to walk upon the ploughed land, which, besides
making the ridge uneven at the top, presses the ground, which
is injurious. For ploughing between the rows of Turnips and
of Indian Corn also, what a great convenience this will be!
An ox goes steadier than a horse, and will plough deeper with-
out fretting and tearing ; and he wants neither harnessenaker
norgroom. ‘The plan of my yoke I took from Tutt. I showed
it to my workman, who chopped off the limb of a tree, and
made the yoke in an hour. It isa piece of wood, with two
holes to receive two ropes, about three quarters of an inch in
diameter. These traces are fastened in the yoke merely by a
knot, which prevenis the ends from passing iets the holes,
while the other ends are fastened to the two ends of a Wif-
fle-tree, as itis called in Long Island, of a Wipple-tree as itis
called in Kent, and of a Wippance as it is called in Hamp-
shire. Iam but a poor draftsman ; but, if the printer can find
any thing to make the representation with, the following draft
will clearly show what I have meant to describe in words.
When the Corn (Indian) and Turnips get toa size, sufficient

Chap. II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. . 118

enough, are not so steady as oxen, which are more
patient also, and with which you may send the
plough-share down without any of the fretting and
‘unequal pulling, or jerking, that you have to en-
counter with horses. And, as to the slow pace of
the ox, it is the old story of the tortoise and the
hare. If] had known in England, of the use of
oxen, what I have been taught upon Long Island,
I might have saved myself some hundreds of pounds
a year. I ought to have followed Tutt in this as
in all other parts of his manner of cultivating land.
But, in our country, it is difficult to get a plough-
man to look at an ox. In this Island the thing is
done so completely and so easily, that it was, to me,
quite wonderful to behold. To see one of these
Long-Islanders going into the field, or orchard, at
sun rise, with his yoke in his hand, call his oxen

to attract the appetite of the ox, you have only to put on a
muzzle. This is what Mr. Tuxx did; for, though we ought
not to muzzle the ox ‘as he treadeth out the corn,” we may
do it, even for his own sake, amongst other considerations,
when he is assisting us to bring the crop to perfection.

120 RUTA BAGA CULTURE, Part IL.

by name to come and put their necks under the yoke,
drive them before him to his plough, just hitch a
hook on to the ring of the yoke, and then, without
any thing except a single chain and the yoke, with
no reins, no halters, no traces, no bridle, no dri-
ver, set on to plough, and plough a goo@acre anda
half in the day ; to see this would make an English
farmer stare ; and well it might, when he looked
back to the ceremonious and expensive business af
keeping and managing a plough-team in England.

125. ‘These are the means, which I would, and
which I shail, use to protect my crops against the
effects of a dry season. So that, as every one has
the same means at his command, no one need be
afraid of drought. Itis a bright plough-share that
italways wanted much more than showers. With
this culture there is no fear of a crop; and though
it amount to only five hundred bushels onan acre,
what crop is half so valuable.

126. The bulk of crop, however, in the broad-
cast, or random, method, may be materially affect-
ed by drought ; for, in that case, the plough can-
not come to supply the place of showers. The
ground there will be dry and keep dry ina dry
time ; asin the case of the supposed half rod of
undug ground in the garden. ‘The weeds, too, will
come and help, by their roots, to suck the moisture
out of the ground. As to the hand-hoeings, they
may keep down weeds to be sure, and they raise a
trifling portion of exhalation ; but, it is trifling in-
deed. Dry weather, if of long continuation, makes
the leaves become of a 6luish colour; and, when
this is once the case, all the rain and all the fine
weather in the world will never make the crop a
good one ; because the plough cannot move amidst
this scene of endless irregularity. This is one of
the chief reasons why the ridge method is best.

Chap. Il. -sRUTA BAGA CULTURE, 424

Uses of and mode of applying, the crop.

127. It is harder to say, what uses this root
may not be put, than what uses it may be put to, in
the feeding of animals. They are eaten greedily
by sheep, horn cattle, and hogs, in their raw state.
Boiled or steamed (which is better) no dog that I
ever saw, will refuse it. Poultry of all sorts will
live upon it in its cooked state. Some dogs will
even eat i®raw ; a fact that I first became acquaint-
ed with by perceiving my Shepherd’s dog eating
it in the field along with the sheep. I have two
Spaniels that come into the barn and eat it raw ;
and yet they are both in fine condition. Some
horses will nearly live upon it in the raw state ;
others are not so fond of it.

128. Let me give an account of what I am doing
now (in the month of April) with my crop.

129. it is not pretended, that this root, measure
for measure, is equal to Indian Corn in the ear.
Therefore, as I can get Indian Corn in the ear for
half a dollar a bushel, and, as I sell my Ruta Baga
for halfa dollar a bushel at New-York, I am very
sparing of the use of the latter for animals. In-
deed, ! use none at home, except such as have
been injured, as above-mentioned, by the delay in
the harvesting. These damaged roots | apply in
the following manner.

130. Twice a day [ take about two bushels, and
scaiter them about upon the grass for fifteen Ewes
with their lambs and a few wether sheep, and for
seven stout store-pigs, which eat with them. Once
a day | fling out a parcel of the refuse that have
been cut from the roots sent to market, along with
cabbage leaves, and stems, parsnip fibres, and the
like. Here the working oxen, hogs, cow, sheep
and fowls, all feed as they please. All these ani-
mals are in excellent condition. The cow has zo

11

122 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part Ff.

other food ; the working oxen a lock of hay twice
a day ; the Ewes an ear of Indian Corn each ; ; the
pigs nothing but the roots: the fowls and ducks
and turkeys are never fed in any other way, though
they know how to feed themselves whenever there
is any thing good to be found above ground.

131. I am weaning some pigs, which, as every
one knows, is an affair of milk and meal. I have
neither. I give about three buckets of boiled Ruta ©
Baga to seven pigs every day, not having any con-
venience for steaming ; and two baits of Indian Corn
in the ear. And, with this diet, increasing the
quantity with the growth of the pigs, I expect to —
turn them out of the stye fatter (if that be possible)
than they entered it. Now, if this be so, every
farmer will say, that this is what never was done be-
fore in America. We all know how important a
thing it is to wean a pig well. Any body can wean
them without milk and meal ; but, then the pigs are
good for nothing. They remain three months after-
wards and never grow an inch ; and they are, in-
deed, not worth having. ‘To have milk, you must
have cows, and cows are vast consumers! ‘To have
cows, you must have female labour, which, in Ame-
rica, 1s a very precious commodity. You cannot
have meal without sharing in kind pretty liberally
with the miller, besides bestowing labour, however
busy you may be, to carry the corn to mill and
bring the meal back. I am, however, speaking
here of the pigs from my English breed; though!
am far from supposing that the common pigs might
not be weaned in the same way.

132. Sows with young pigs | feed thus: boiled |
Ruta Baga twice a day. About three ears of In- |
dian Corn a piece twice a day. As much offal Ru-
ta Baga raw as they will eat. Amongst this boiled
Ruta Baga, the pot-liquor of the house goes, of
course ; but, then, the dogs, ! dare say, take care,
that the best shall fall to their lot ; and as there are

“Chap. I. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 123

four of them pretty fat, their share cannot be very
small. Every one knows, what good food, how
much meal and milk are necessary to sows which
have pigs. I have no milk, for my cow has not
yet calved. And, then, what a chance concern this
is; for, the sows may perversely have pigs at the
time when the cows do not please to give milk; or,
rather, when they, poor things, without any fault
of theirs, are permitted to go dry, which never
need be, and never ought to be the case. I had
a cow once that made more than two pounds of but-
ter during the week, and had a calf on the Saturday
night. Cows always ought to be milked to the very
day of their calving, and during the whole of the
time of their suckling their calves. But, ‘ suffi-
cient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Let us
leave this matter ‘till another time. Having, how-
ever, accidentally mentioned cows, I will just ob-
serve, that, in the little publication of Mr. Cramp,
mentioned above, as having been printed by the
Board of Agriculture, it was stated, and the proof
given, that his single cow gave him, clear profit, for
several successive years, more than fifty pounds
sterling a year, or upwards of two hundred and twen-
ty dollars. This was clear profit; reckoning the
food and labour, and taking credit for the calf, the
butter, and for the skim milk at a@ penny a quart
only. Mr. Cramp’s was a Sussex cow. Mine were
of the Alderny breed. “Little, small boned things ;
but, two of my cows, fed upon three quarters of an
acre of grass ground, in the middle of my shrubbery,
and fastened to pins in the ground, which were
shifted twice a day, made three hundred pounds of
butter from the 28th of March to the 27th of June.
This is a finer country for cattle than England ; and
yet, what do | see!

133. This difficulty about feeding sows with
young pigs and weaning pigs, is one of the greatest
of hinderances to improvement ; for, after all, what

[24 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part F.:

animal produces flesh meat like the hog? Applica-
ble to all uses, either fresh or salted, is the meat.
Good in all its various shapes. The animal killa-
ble at all ages. Quickly fatted. Good if half fat.
Capable of supporting an immense burden of fat.
Demanding but litile space for its accommodation ;
and yet, if grain and corn and milk are to be their
principal food, during their lives, they cannot mul-
tiply very fast ; because many upon a farm cannot
be kept to much profit. But, if, by providing a
sufficiency of Ruta Baga, a hundred pigs could be
vaised upon a farm in a year, and carried on ‘till
faiting time, they would be worth, when ready to
zo into the fatting style, fifteen dollars each. This
would be something worth attending to ; and, the
farm must become rich from the manure. The Ru-
ta Baga, taken out of the heaps early in April, will
keep well and sound all the summer; and, witha
yunin an orchard, or in any grassy place, it will
keep a good sort of hog always in a very thriving
and even fieshy state.

134. '‘lhis root, being called a turnip, is regarded
asa turnip, as a common turnip, than which nothing
can be much less resembling it. The common
turnip is a very poor thing. The poorest of all
roots of the bulb kind, cultivated in the fields ;-
and, the Ruta Baga, all taken together, is, perhaps,
the very best. It loses none of its good qualities
by being long kept, though dry all the while. A
neighbour of mine in Hampshire, having saved a
large piece of Ruta Baga for Seed, and having,
after harvesting the seed, accidentally thrown some
of the roots into his yard, saw his hogs eat these
old roots, which had borne the seed. He gave
them some more, and saw that they eat them gree-
dily. He, therefore, went and bought a whole
drove, in number about forty, of lean pigs of a goed
Jarge size, brought them into his yard, carted in
the roots of his seed Ruta Baga ; and, without having

Chap. IT. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 125

given the pigs a handful of any other sort of food,
sold out his pigs as fat porkers. And, indeed, it isa
fact well known, that sheep and cattle as well as hogs
will thrive upon this root after it has borne seed,
which is what, I believe, can be said of no other
root or plant.

135. When we feed off our Ruta Baga in the
fields, in England, by sheep, there are small parts
left by the sheep ; the shells which they have left
after scooping out the pulp of the bulb; the tap
root ; and other little bits. These are pecked out
of the ground; and when washed by the rain,
other sheep follow and live upon these. Or, in
default of other sheep, hogs or cattle are turned in
in dry weather, and they leave not a morsel.

136. Nor are the greens to be forgotten. In
England, they are generally eaten by the sheep,
when these are turned in upon them. When the
roots are taken up for uses at the home-stead, the
greens are given to store pigs and lean cattle. I
cut mine off, while the roots were in the ground,
and gave them to fatting cattle upon grass land
alternately with Indian Corn in the ear ; and, in
this way, they are easily and most profitably ap-
plied, and they come, too, just after the grass is
gone from the pastures. An acre produces about
four good wagon loads of greens ; and they are
taken off fresh and fresh as they are wanted, and,
at the same time, the roots are thus made ready
for going, at once, into the heaps. Pigs, sheep,
cattle; all like the greens as well as they do the
roots. Try any of them with the greens of White
Turnips ; and, if they touch them, “they will have
changed their natures, or at least, their tastes.

137. The Mangle Wurzle, the Cabbage, the
Carrot, and the Parsnip, are all useful; and, the
latter, that is to say, the Parsnip, very valuable
indeed; but, the main cattle-crop is the Ruta
Baga. Even the White Turnip, if well cultivated,

ie dag

126 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part [-

may be of great use; and, as it admits of being
sown later, it may often be very desirable to raise
it. But, reserving myself to speak fully, in a
future part of my “work, of my experiments as to
these crops, I shall now make a short inquiry as
to the value of a crop of Ruta Baga, compared
with the value of any other crop. I will just
observe, in this place, however, that I have grown
jimer carrots, parsnips and Mangle Wurzle, and
even-finer cabbages, than I ever grew upon the
richest land in Hampshire, though not a seed of
any of them was put into the ground ’till the month
of June.

138. A good mode, it appears to me, of making
my proposed comparative estimate, will be to say,
how I would proceed, supposing me to have a farm
of my own in this Island, of only one hundred
acres. If there were not twelve acres of orchard,
near the house, | would throw as much grass land
to the orchard as would make up the twelve acres,
which I would fence in in an effectual manner,
against small pigs as well as large oxen.

139. Having done this, I would take care to
have fifteen acres of good Indian Corn, well plant-
ed, well suckered and well tilled in all respects.
Good, deep ploughing between the plants would
give me forty bushels of shelled corn to an acre ;
and a ton to the acre of fodder for my four work-
ing oxen and three cows and my sheep and hogs,

of which I shall speak presently.

140. I would have twelve acres of Ruta Babe:
three acres of Early Cabbages, an acre of Mangle
Wurzle, an-acre of Carrots and Parsnips, and as
many White Turnips as would grow between my
rows of Indian Corn after my last ploughing of
that crop.

141. With these crops, which would occu-
py thirty-two acres of ground, I should not fear
being able to keep a good house in all sorts of

Chap. IT. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 127

meat, together with butter and milk, and to send
to Market nine quarters of beef and three hides,
a hundred early fat lambs, a bundred hogs, weigh-
ing twelve score, as we call it in Hampshire, or
two hundred and forty pounds each, and a hun-
dred fat ewes. These, all together, would amount
to about three thousand dollars, exclusive of the
cost of a hundred Ewes and of three Oxen; and,
I should hope, that the produce of my trees in
the orchard and of the other fifty-six acres of my
farm would pay the rent and the labour; for, as
to taxes, the amount 1s not worth naming, espe-
cially after the sublime spectacle of that sort,
which the world beholds in England.

142. Iam, you will perceive, not making any
account of the price of Ruta Baga, Cabbages, Car-
rots, Parsnips, and White Turnips at New-York,
or any other market. I now, indeed, sell carrots
and parsnips at three quarters of a dollar the
hundred by tale ; cabbages (of last fall) at about
three dollars a hundred, and White Turnips at a
quarter of a dollar a bushel. When this can be
done, and the distance is within twenty or thirty
miles on the best road in the world, it will, of
course, be done; but, my calculations are built
upon a supposed consumption of the whole upon
the farm by animals of one sort or another.

143.. My feeding would be nearly as follows. [
will begin with February ; for, until then the Ruta
Baga does not come to its sweetest taste. It is like
an apple, that must have time to ripen; but, then,
it retains its goodness much longer. I have proved,
and especially in the feeding of hogs, that the Ruta
Baga is never so good, ’till it arrives at a mature
state. In February, and about the first of that
month, I should begin bringing in my Ruta Baga,
inthe manner before described. My three oxen,
which would have been brought forward by other
food to he spoken of by and by, would be ted up in

-

128 RUTA BAGA CULTURE, Part [.

a stall looking into one of those fine commodious

barns’-floors which we have upon this island. Their

stall should be warm, and they should be kept well

littered, and cleaned out frequently. The Ruta Ba-

ga, just chopped into large pieces with a spade or

shovel, and tossed into the manger to the oxen at.
the rate of about two bushels a day to each ox,

would make them completely fat, without the aid of
corn, hay, or any other thing. I should, probably,

kill one ox at Christmas, and, in that case, he must

have had a longer time than the others upon other

food. If [killed one of the two remaining oxen in

the middle of March and the other on the first of
May, they would consume 266 bushels of Ruta

Baga.

14, My hundred Ewes would begin upon Ruta
Baga at the same time, and, as my grass ground
would be only twelve acres until after hay-time, I
shall suppose them to be fed on this root till July,
and they will always eat it and thrive upon it.
They will eat about 8 pounds each, a day ; so that,
for 150 days it would require a hundred and twen-
ty thousand pounds weight, or two thousand four
hundred bushels.

145. Fourteen breeding sows to be kept all the
year round, would bring a hundred pigs in the
Spring, and they and their pigs would, during the
same 150 days, consume much about the same quan-
tity ; for though the pigs would be small during
these 150 days, yet they eat a great deal more than
a sheep in proportion to their size, or, rather bulk.
However, as they would eat very little daring 60
days of their age, I have rather over-rated their
consumption.

146. Three cows and four working oxen would,
during the 150 days consume about one thousand
bushels, which, indeed, would be more than suffi-
cient, because, during a great part of the time,
they would more than half live upon Corn stalks :

Chap II. RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 129

and, indeed, this, to a certain extent would be the
case with the sheep. However, as I mean that
every thing should be of a good size, and live well,
I make ample provision.

147. [should want, then, to raise five hundred
bushels of Ruta Baga upon each of my twelve
acres ; and, why should I not do it, seeing that I
have this year raised six hundred and forty bushels
upon an acre, under circumstances such as |] have
stated them. I lay it down, therefore, that, witha
culture as good as that of Indian Corn, any man
may, on this Island (where Corn will grow) have
500 bushels to the acre.

148. I am now come to the first of July. My
Oxen are fatted and disposed of. My Lambs are
gone to market, the last of them, a month ago.
My pigs are weaned and of a good size. And now
my Ruta Baga is gone. But, my Ewes, kept well
through the winter, will soon be fat upon the 12
acres of orchard and the\hay-ground, aided by my
three acres of early cabbages, which are now fit to
begin cutting, or, rather, pulling up. The weight
of this crop may be made very great indeed. Ten
thousand plants will stand upon anacre, in four feet
ridges, and every plant ought to weigh three pounds
at least. I have shown before how advantageous-
ly Ruta Baga transplanted would follow these
cabbages, all through the months of July, and Au-
gust. But, what a crop of Buckwheat would fol-
low such of the cabbages as came off in July! My
Cabbages, together with my hay fields and grain
fields after Harvest, and about 40 or 50 wagon
loads of Ruta Baga greens, would carry me along
well ’till December (the cabbages being planted at
different times); for my Ewes would be sold fat in
July, and my pigs would be only increasing in de-
mand for food; and the new hundred Ewes need
not, and ought not, to be kept so well as if they
were fatting, or had lambs by their side.

130 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I.

-149. From the first of December to the first of
February, Mangle Wurzle and White Turnips
would keep the sheep and cattle and breeding sows
plentifally ; for the latter will live well upon
Mangle Wurzle ; and my hundred hogs, intended
for fatting would be much more than half fat upon
the carrots and parsnips. I should, however,
more probably, keep my parsnips “till spring, and
mix the feeding with carrots with the feeding with
corn, for the first month, or fifteen days, with re-
gard to the fatting hogs. None of these hogs would
require more than three bushels of corn each to
finish them completely. My other three hundred
bushels would be for sows giving suck; for the
Ewes, now and then in wet weather ; and for other
occasional purposes.

150. Thus all my hay and oats and wheat and
rye might be sold, leaving me the straw for litter.
These, surely, would pay the rent and the labour ;
and, if [ am told, that | have taken no account of the
mutton and lamb and pork that my house would de--
mand, neither have | taken any account of @ hun-
dred summer pigs, which the fourteen sows would
have, and which would hardly fail to bring two hun-
dred dollars. Poultry demand some food; but,
three parts of their raising consists of care; and,
if! had nobody in my house to bestow this care, I
should, of course, have the less number of mouths
to feed.

151. But, my horses. Will not they swallow my
hay and my oats ? No: for | want no horses. But,
am I never to take a ride, then? Ay, but, if | do,
Thave no right to lay the expense of it to the ac-
count of the farm. Iam speaking of how a man
may live by andupon afarm. Ifa merchant spend
a thousand a year, and gain a thousand, does he
say, that his traffick has gained him nothing ? When
men lose money by farming, as they call it, they for-
get, that itis not the farming, but other expenses that
take away their money. It is,in fact; they that

Chap. II. RUTA RAGA CULTURE. 131

rob the farm, and not the farm them. Horses may
be kept for the purpose of going to church, or to
meeting, or to pay visits. in many cases this may
be not only convenient, but necessary, to a family ;
but, upon this island, | am very sure, that it is
neither convenient nor necessary to a farm.
** What!” the ladies will say, ‘‘ would you have us
“to be shut up at home all our lives ; or be drag-
‘eed about by oxen.”? - By no means; not I! [
should be very sorry to be thought the author of
any such advice. 1 have nosort of objection to the
keeping of horses upon a farm; but, | do insist
upon it, that all the food and manual labour requir-
ed by such horses, ought to be considered as so
much taken from the clear profits of the farm.

152. I have made sheep, and particularly lambs,
a part of my supposed stock ; but, | do not know,
that I should keep any beyond what might be
useful for my house. Hogs are the most profita-
ble stock, if you have a large quantity of the food
that they will thrive on. ‘They are fowl feeders ;
but they will eat nothing that is poor in its nature ;
that is to say, they will not thrive onit. ‘They are
the most able tasters in all the creation ; and, that
which they like best, you may be quite sure has
the greatest proportion of nutritious matter in it,
from a White ‘Turnip to a piece of beef. They
will prefer meat to corn, and cooked meat to raw ;
they will leave parsnips for corn or grain; they
will leave carrots for parsnips; they will leave
Ruta Baga for carrots; they will leave cabbages
for Ruta Baga; they will leave Mangle Wurzle
for cabbages ; they will leave potatoes (both being
raw) for Mangle Wurzle, A White turnip they
will not touch, unless they be on the point of
starving. They are the best of triers. Whatever
they prefer is sure to be the richest thing within
their reach. The parsnip is, by many degrees,
_ the richest root; but, the seed hes long in the

7 ' ~
132 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part fF.

ground ; the sowing and after culture are works of
great niceness. The crop is large with good cul-
tivation ; but, as a main crop, I prefer the Ruta
Baga, of which the crop is immense, and the har-
vesting and preserving and application of which are
SO easy.

153. The farm] suppose to be in fair condition to
start with. The usual grass seeds sown, and so
forth, and every farmer will see, that, under my
system, it must soon become rich as any garden
need to be, without my sending men and horses to
the water side to fetch ashes, which have been
brought from Boston, or Charleston, an average
distance of seven hundred miles! In short, my
stock would give me, in one shape or another, ma-
nure to the amount in utility of more than a thou-
sand tons weight a year of common yard manure.
This would be ten tons to an acre every year. The
farm would, in this way become more and more
productive ; and, as to its being too rich, I see no
danger of that ; for a broad-cast crop of wheat will,
at any time, tame it pretty sufficiently.

154. Very much, in my opinion, do those mis-
take the matter, who strive to get a great breadth
of land, with the idea, that, when they have tired
one field, they can let it lie, and go to another. It
is better to have one acre of good crop, than two of
bad or indifferent. Ifthe one acre can, by double
the manure and double the labour in tillage, be made
to produce as muchas two other acres, the one acre
is preferable, because it requires only half as much
fencing, and littie more than half as much harvest-
ing, as two acres. There is many a ten acres of
land near London, that produce more than any com-
mon farm of two hundred acres. My garden of
three quarters of an acre produced more, in value,
last summer, from June to December, than any ten
acres of oat land upon Long Island, though I there
saw as fine fields of oats as 1 ever saw in my life.—

~ “ae
. ‘ 5
Chap. If. , RUTA BAGA CULTURE. 7 133

A heavy crop upon all the ground that I put a plough
ito is what | should seek, rather than to have a
great quantity of land.

155. The business of carting manure from a
distance can, in very few, if any cases, answer a
profitable purpose. | ff any man would give me
even horse dung at the stable door, four miles from
my land, | would not accept of it, on condition of
fetching it. I say the same of spent ashes. To
manure a field of ten acres, in this way, a man and
two horses must be employed twenty days at least,
with twenty days wear and tear of wagon and tackle.
Two oxen and two men do the business i in two days,
if the manure be on the spot.

156. In concluding my remarks on the subject of
Ruta Baga, I have to apologize for the desultory
manner in which [have treated the matter ; but,
I have put the thoughts down as they occurred to
me, without much time for arrangement, wishing
very much to get this first part in the hands of the
public before the arrival of the time for the sowing of
Rata Baga this present year. In the succeeding parts
of the work, I propose to treat of the culture of
every other plant that | have found to be of use up-
on a farm ; and also to speak fully of the sorts of
cattle, sheep, and hogs, particularly the latter. My
experiments are now going on; and, | shall only
have to communicate the result, which I shall do
very faithfully, and with as much clearness as | am
able. In the meanwhile, | shall be glad to afford
an opportunity, to any persons who may think it
worth while to come to Hyde Park, of seeing how
I proceed. _1 have just now (17th April) planted
out my Ruta Baga, Cabbages, Mangle Wurzle,
Onions, Parsnips, &c. for seed. I shall begin my
earth burning in about fifteen days. _ In short, being
convinced, that I am able to communicate very valu-
able experiments ; and not knowing how snort, or
how long, my stay in America may be, | wish very

44888 199

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Te eo" ie
a.
134 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. ie a Patt r.
much to leave behind me whatever of good I am

~ able, in return for the protection, which America

has afforded me against the fangs of the Borough-

mongers of England ; to which country, however,
I always bear affection, which 1 cannot feel towards
any other in the same degree, and the prosperity
and honour of which | shall, I hope, never cease
to prefer before the gratification of all private plea-
sures and emoluments.

3 i

End of the Treatise on Ruta Baga and of Part I.

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