though the sheep are confined in hurdles, must be great; and still greater when consumed by horses or cattle. 5273. Tare crops are sometimes made into hay, in which case more attention is found necessary than in those of most of the artificial grasses, as wet is more injurious to them, and they require more sun and air; but in other respects they demand the same cautious management, in order to preserve the foliage from being lost. The time for cutting for this purpose is, according to the author of The Synopsis of Husbandry, when the blossoms have declined and they begin to fall and lie flat. When well made, the hay is of the best and most nutritious quality. 5274. The produce of tares cut green is, according to Middleton, ten or twelve tons per acre, which is a large crop; and when made into hay about three tons per acre, which shows the disadvantage of making these crops into hay. It is found that the spring tarecrops are lighter, and most liable to be injured by a dry season. 5275. The produce in seed is likewise found to be considerable, being by some stated at from three to six sacks; but in other instances forty bushels, or more, have been obtained from the acre. 5276. In the application of tares they are found to be a hearty and most nourishing food for all sorts of cattle. 5277. Cows give more butter when fed with this plant than with any other food whatsoever. Horses thrive better upon tares than they do upon clover and rye-grass; and the same remark is applicable to the fattening of cattle, which feed faster upon this article of green fodder than upon any kind of grass or esculent with which we are acquainted. Danger often arises from their eating too much, especially when podded; as colics, and other stomach disorders, are apt to be produced by the excessive loads which they devour. Perhaps a great quantity of fixed air is contained in this vegetable; and as heavy crops are rarely dry at the root when cut, it is not to be wondered that accidents often happen, when the animal is indulged with the unrestrained consumption of them. Were oat straw mixed with the tares in the racks or stalls in which they are deposited, it is probable that fewer accidents would follow, though this assistant is only required when the tares are wet, foul, or over succulent. If the plants are cut green, and given to live stock, either on the field or in the fold-yards, there is, perhaps, no green crop of greater value, nor any better calculated to give a succession of herbage from May to November. The winter-sown tare, in a favourable climate, is ready for cutting before clover. The first spring-crop comes in after the clover must be all consumed or made into hay; and the successive spring sowings give a produce more nourishing for the larger animals than the aftermath of clover, and may afford green food at least a month longer. In the county of Sussex, Young observes, "tare crops are of such use and importance that not one tenth of the stock could be maintained without them; horses, cows, sheep, hogs, all feed upon them; hogs are soiled upon them without any other food. This plant maintains more stock than any other plant whatsoever. Upon one acre Davis maintained four horses in much better condition than upon five acres of grass. Upon eight acres he has kept twelve horses and five cows for three months without any other food; no artificial food whatever is equal to this excellent plant." This statement must be coupled with the usual produce of turnips in Sussex, 10 or 15 tons per acre: hence the supposed superiority of tares to every other green crop. Tares cut green, Professor Thaer observes, draw no nourishment from the soil whatever; while made into hay, they afford a fodder preferred by cattle to pea straw, and more nutritive than hay or any other herbage. 528. The use of the grain of tares is generally for reproduction; but they are also given to pigeons, by which they are highly relished, and it is thought they would form a very good food for poultry. In Germany they are given to horses, cows, sheep, and swine. 5279. The diseases of tares are so few as to be of no consequence. A crop is sometimes, but rarely, lost by mildew. SECT. IV. Various Legumes which might be cultivated in British Farming. 5280. The lentil, kidneybean, and chick pea are grown both in France and Germany, as field plants, for their seeds, which are used as food. They are by no means likely to become articles of general culture in Britain; but it is worth while to know that they may be cultivated here instead of being imported, and also that they form very excellent articles of human subsistence. 5281. The lentil is the E'rvum Léns L.; Lentillon, Fr.; Lentzen, Ger.; and Lenticcia, Ital. (fig. 743.) It is a legume of the greatest antiquity, being in esteem in Esau's time, and much prized in Eastern countries ever since. In Egypt and Syria, they are parched in a frying-pan and sold in the shops, and considered by the natives as the best food for those who undertake long journeys. The lentil is considered a native of France, but has been known in England from the earliest agricultural records. In Gerarde's time they were sown like tares, their haulm given to cattle, and the seed to pigeons, and used in meagre soups. 5282. There are three varieties of lentils cultivated in France and Germany: the small brown, which is the lightest-flavoured, and the best for haricots and soups; the yellowish, which is a little larger, and the next best; and the lentil of Provence, which is almost as large as a pea, with luxuriant straw, and more fit to be cultivated as a tare than as food for man. The French have also a winter lentil, Lentillon d'hiver; and they cultivate the E'rvum Ervilia, Lentille Erse ou Ervillier, and the E. monanthos, Len à une fleur, Jarosse d'Auvergne. The Spanish lentil,-Gesse cultivée, Lentille d'Espagne, Fr., Lenteja, Span.,-is the Lathyrus sativus. (fig. 744) It is some. times grown in gardens in this country, and occasionally in the fields in France. The lentil of Canada, Lentille du Canada, Fr., is the Vicia pisiformis Lin. (fig. 745.) Vicia Ervilia Willd., E'rvum tetraspermum Lin., and E. hirsutum Lin., are also cultivated in some places as lentils; and indeed the seeds of all the tribe Vicia (Encyclopedia of Plants, p. 1066.) may be eaten by man. 5283. A dry, warm, sandy soil is requisite for the lentil; it is sown rather later than the pea, at the rate of a bushel or a bushel and a half to the acre; in other respects its culture and harvesting are the same, and it ripens sooner. The lentil, Young observes, is a crop not uncommon about Chesterford in Essex, where they sow a bushel an acre on one ploughing in the beginning or middle of March. It is there the custom to make hay of them, or seed them for cutting into chaff for trough-meat for sheep and horses, and they sow them on both heavy and dry soils. It is, however, added, that the whole country is of a calcareous nature. It is likewise stated, that attention should be paid not to water horses soon after eating this sort of food, as they are apt to hove them. They are asserted to be cultivated for the same purpose in Oxfordshire, and probably in other districts. 5284. The produce of the lentil in grain is about a fourth less than that of the tare; and in straw it is not a third as much, the plants seldom growing above one foot and a half high. The straw is, however, very delicate and nourishing, and preferred for lambs and calves; and the grain on the Continent sells at nearly 744 double the price of peas. Ein- 5285. The use of the lentil on 5286. The chick_pea (Poischiche Gauance, Fr. ; Cicer arietinum, fig. 52.), grows naturally in the south of Europe, and is cultivated there for the same purposes as the lentil, but it is too delicate for field culture in this country. 745 manure. CHAP. IV. Plants cultivated for their Roots or Leaves in a recent State as Food for Man or Cattle. 5289. Plants cultivated for their roots or leaves are various, and most of them are adapted both for human food and that of domestic animals; but some are chiefly or entirely grown for the nurture of live stock. The plants which we include under this head, are the potato, turnip, carrot, parsnep, beet, cabbage tribe, lettuce, and chiccory. The culture of roots may be considered a branch of farming almost entirely of modern origin, and more peculiarly British than any other department. Turnips were cultivated by the Romans, and in modern times brought into notice as objects of field culture in the last century; but they were most imperfectly managed, and of very little utility in agriculture till their culture was undertaken by the British farmer. The potato, carrot, and parsnep were also first cultivated in the fields of this country. Friable or light soil, superior pulverisation and manuring, the row-method, and careful after-culture, are essential to the maturation of the plants to be treated of in this Chapter; and hence the importance of such crops as preparations for those of the bread corns. 5290. The nutritive products of these plants are thus given by Sir H. Davy: The Potato. Solanum tuberosum L.; Pentándria Monogýnia L., and Solanea J. and Batata, Span. 5291. The potato is ascertained to be a native of South America, having been found wild both in Buenos Ayres and in Chili; though Humboldt was very doubtful if that could be proved: he admits, however, that it is naturalised there in some situations. Sir J. Banks (Hort. Trans. vol. i. p. 8.) considers that the potato was first brought into Europe from the mountainous parts of South America, in the neighbourhood of Quito, where they were called papas, to Spain, in the early part of the sixteenth century. From Spain, where they were called battatas, they appear to have found their way first to Italy, where they received the same name with the truffle, taratoufli. The potato was received by Clusius, at Vienna, in 1588, from the governor of Mons, in Hainault, who had procured it the year before from one of the attendants of the Pope's legate, under the name of taratouflo, and learned from him that it was then in use in Italy. In Germany it received the name of cartoffel, and spread rapidly even in Clusius's time. 5292 To England the potato was brought from Virginia by the colonists sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, who returned in July 1586, and "probably," according to Sir Joseph Banks, "brought with them the potato." Thomas Herriot, in a report on the country, published in De Bry's Collection of Voyages, (vol. i. p. 17.), describes a plant called openank (not openawk, as in the Hort. Trans.), with "roots as large as a walnut, and others much larger; they grow in damp soil, many hanging together, as if fixed on ropes; they are good food, either boiled or roasted." Gerarde, in his Herbal, published in 1597, gives a figure of the potato, under the name of the potato of Virginia, whence, he says, he received the roots; and this appellation it appears to have retained, in order to distinguish it from the battatas, or sweet potato (Convolvulus Batatas), till the year 1640, if not longer. "The sweet potato," Sir Joseph Banks observes, "was used in England as a delicacy long before the introduction of our potatoes: it was imported in considerable quantities from Spain and the Canaries, and was supposed to possess the power of restoring decayed vigour. The kissing comfits of Falstaff, and other confections of similar imaginary qualities, with which our ancestors were duped, were principally made of these and of eringo roots." 5293. The potato was first planted by Sir Walter Raleigh, on his estate of Youghall, near Cork, and, Gough says, was " cherished and cultivated for food" in that country before its value was known in England; for, though they were soon carried over from Ireland into Lancashire, Gerarde, who had this plant in his garden in 1597, under the name of Battata virginiana, recommends the roots to be eaten as a delicate dish, not as common food. Parkinson mentions, that the tubers were sometimes roasted, and steeped in sack and sugar, or baked with marrow and spices, and even preserved and candied by the comfit-makers. There is a tradition among the peasantry in the county of Galway, that the potato was introduced there previous to its being known in any other part of Ireland, owing to a vessel with some of the roots on board having been wrecked on their coast, and a few of the roots having been roasted by children who found them, they were so much approved of, as to induce the planting of the remainder. 5294. For encouraging the cultivation of potatoes, with the view of preventing famine, the Royal Society took some measures in 1633. Still, however, although their utility as an article of food was better known, no high character was bestowed on them. In books of gardening, published towards the end of the seventeenth century, a hundred years after their introduction, they are spoken of rather slightingly. "They are much used in Ireland and America as bread," says one author, and may be propagated with advan tage to poor people."—" I do not hear that it hath been essayed," are the words of another, "whether they may not be propagated in great quantities, for food for swine or other cattle." Even the enlightened Evelyn seems to have entertained a prejudice againt them: "Plant potatoes," he says, writing in 1699, "in your worst ground. Take them up in November for winter spending; there will enough remain for a stock, though ever so exactly gathered." But the use of potatoes gradually spread, as their excellent qualities became better understood. It was near the middle of the eighteenth century, however, before they were generally known over the country: since that time they have been most extensively cultivated. In 1796, it was found that, in the county of Essex alone, about 1700 acres were planted with potatoes for the supply of the London market. This must form, no doubt, the principal supply; but many fields of potatoes are to be seen in the other counties bordering on the capital, and many ship-loads are annually imported from a distance. In every county in England, it is now more or less an object of field culture. 5295. Potatoes, as an article of human food, are, next to wheat, of the greatest importance in the eye of the political economist. 5296. From no other crop that can be cultivated will the public derive so much food as from this valuable esculent; and it admits of demonstration, that an acre of potatoes will feed double the number of people that can be fed from an acre of wheat. Potatoes are also a nourishing and healthy food, relished by almost every palate; and it is believed there is hardly a dinner served up for six months in the year without them, in any part of the kingdom. Notwithstanding all these things, and they are of great im They require a great deal of manure, while, generally speaking, little is returned by them; they are a bulky unhandy article, troublesome in the lifting and carrying processes, and interfering with the seed season of wheat, the most important one to him; and, from particular circumstances, they cannot be vended unless when raised in the vicinity of large towns: hence they are in most respects an unprofitable article. To the farmer, the real criterion is the profit which potatoes will return in feeding beasts; and here, we apprehend, the result will altogether be in favour of turnips, and rutabaga, as the most profitable articles for that purpose. 5297. What is called the yam, or Surinam potato, was formerly considered of importance to the farmer, as an assistant to his turnip crop, or rather a succedaneum, which is of material benefit when turnips are consumed; but as this variety cannot be used as human food, the extension of its culture cannot be recommended. By cultivating any of the good eating sorts for the use of cattle, a succedaneum may be had for the human species in years of scarcity. 5298. The value of potatoes as a fallow crop, and as an article of food for cattle compared with turnips and cabbages for the same purposes, Marshal observes, may be considered thus: — 5299. Potatoes are more nutritious; and, in the opinion of those who have used them, fatten cattle much quicker than either turnips or cabbages. Potatoes, too, being secured from the severities of winter, are a more certain article of fatting than turnips or cabbages; both of which are liable to perish under an alternation of frost and thaw; and the turnip, more particularly, is locked up, or rendered more difficult to be come at, during a continuance of snow or frost. Turnips and cabbages, if they out-weather the severities of winter, occupy the soil in the spring when it should be prepared for the succeeding crop ; while potatoes, if properly laid up, are a food which may be continued without inconveniency until the cattle be finished, or the grass has acquired the requisite bite for finishing them in the field. On the other hand, potatoes are a disagreeable crop to cultivate: the planting is a tedious dirty business; and taking them up may be called the filthiest work of husbandry, especially in a wet autumn. A powerful argument for the extensive culture of potatoes as food for live stock is, that in seasons of scarcity they can be adopted as human food. Here, as in many other points, the opinion of Marshal and other English agricul turists is rather at variance with that of the Northumberland and Berwickshire cultivators. In Berwickshire and Roxburghshire, a crop of potatoes is often taken before turnips, by means of which the land is restored to a fertile state. 5300. The varieties of the potato are innumerable: they differ in their leaves and bulk of haulm; in the colour of the skin of the tubers; in the colour of the interior compared with that of the skin; in the time of ripening; in being farinaceous, glutinous, or watery; in tasting agreeably or disagreeably; in cooking readily or tediously; in the length of the subterraneous stolones to which the tubers are attached; in blossoming or not blossoming; and, finally, in the soil which they prefer. 5301. The earliest varieties of the potato are chiefly cultivated in gardens, and therefore we shall only notice such early sorts as are grown in the fields. These are — The early kidney, The nonsuch, The early shaw, and The early champion. The last is the most generally cultivated round London; it is very prolific, hardy, and mealy. Early varieties, with local names, are cultivated near most large towns, especially Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the metropolis. 5304. New varieties of potatoes are procured with the greatest ease. The following directions are given in a useful work on this plant :- Pluck off the apples when the stalk has ceased to vegetate and is drying up. The seed being then fully ripe, break the apple in a hair sieve, wash the pulp clean from the seeds, and dry them in the sun; then sow the seed in beds in March, and take the potatoes up in October. They will attain the size of nutmegs, or at most be no larger than walnuts. Select the fairest and best, and keep them secure from frost by thoroughly drying, and intermixing, and covering them with sifted wood or coal-ashes. Plant them in April following, at the distance of fifteen inches asunder; and when the plant is two inches high, hill them with fresh earth. This may be done several times, constantly taking care to keep them clean from weeds. Observe when the stalks decay; some will be found decaying much sooner than others; these are the early kinds, but those that decay last are the sorts which come late. Take them up in rotation as they ripen, and let the produce of each potato be kept separate till the next year. Such as come early may be tried as soon as they are taken up, by dressing one or two: should they be approved, the remainder may be preserved; but those which are late should not be fried before January or February, for it will be found that the late kind of potatoes, newly raised, are very soft, and cut like soap, until they have been hoarded a certain time, when they become mealy. Under each stalk you may expect to find a gallon of potatoes; those planted the third year may, perhaps, produce two sacks; and their increase afterwards will be very considerably greater. Thus it takes full three years to form an adequate judgment of potatoes raised from seed; and, after all, if one in ten succeed so as to be worth pre. serving, it is as much as can be reasonably expected. In general, the produce of the seed will resemble the parent stock; but red varieties will give both white and red offspring, and among the offspring of kidneys will be found round-shaped tubers. One great advantage of raising varieties from seed is alleged to be the invigoration of the vegetative principle. 5305. Some of the earlier sorts of potatoes do not blossom, and consequently do not, under ordinary management, produce seeds. To procure blossoms and seeds from these, it is necessary, from time to time, during the early part of the summer, to remove the carth from the roots of the plants, and pick off the tubers or potatoes as they begin to form. By thus preventing the strength of the plant from being employed in forming tubers at the root, it will flow into the leaves and herbage, and produce blossoms and apples. Knight, the president of the Horticultural Society, by adopting this practice, succeeded in procuring seeds from some sorts of potatoes which had never before produced blossoms; and from these seeds he raised excellent varieties, some hardy and less early, others small and very early. He farther impregnated the blossoms produced by these early potatoes with other sorts, some early and some late (in the way in which graziers cross the breeds of cattle to improve the offspring), and he succeeded in producing varieties, more early than late sorts, and more hardy and prolific than any early potatoes he had seen. These he cultivated in his fields, deeming them preferable to all other sorts as admitting of later planting and earlier removal; and this practice he justly considered as highly favourable to the succeeding crop of wheat. 5306. In choosing a sort or sorts of potatoes from the numerous varieties which are to be found every where, perhaps the best way is, for the selector to procure samples and taste them, and to fix on what best pleases his palate. The shaw is one of the best early potatoes for general field culture; and the kidney and bread-fruit are good sorts to come in in succession. The Lancashire pink is also an excellent potato; and we have never in any part of the British Isles tasted a potato equal in mealiness and flavour to this variety, as cultivated round Prescot, near Liverpool. The red apple and tartan are of undoubted preference as late or long keeping potatoes. The yam is decidedly the best potato for stock, and will produce from twelve to fifteen tons per acre. 5307. The soil in which the potato thrives best is a light loam, neither too dry nor too moist, but if rich, it is so much the better. They may, however, be grown well on many other sorts of lands, especially those of the mossy, moory, and similar kinds, where they are free from stagnant moisture, and have had their parts well broken down by culture, and a reasonable portion of manure added. The best-flavoured table potatoes are almost always produced from a newly broken up pasture ground not manured; or from any new soil, as the site of a grubbed up copse or hedge, or the site of old buildings or roads. Repeated on the same soil they very generally lose their flavour. The yam produces the largest crops on a loamy and rather strong soil, though it will grow well on any that is deeply ploughed and well manured. 5308. In preparing the soil for potatoes, it is of much importance to free it as completely as possible from root weeds, which cannot be so well extirpated afterwards, as in the culture of turnips, and some other drilled crops, both because the horse-hoe must be excluded altogether at a time when vegetation is still vigorous, and because at no period of their growth is it safe to work so near the plants, especially after they have made some progress in growth. It is the earlier time of planting, and of finishing the afterculture, that renders potatoes a very indifferent substitute for fallow, and in this respect in no degree comparable to turnips For this reason, as well as on account of the great quantity of manure required, their small value at a distance from large towns, and the great expense of transporting so bulky a commodity, the culture of potatoes is by no means extensive in the best managed districts. Unless in the immediate Vicinity of such towns, or in very populous manufacturing counties, potatoes do not constitute a regular rotation crop, though they are raised almost every where to the extent required for the consumption of the farmer and his servants, and, in some cases, for occasionally feeding horses and cattle, particularly late in spring. The first ploughing is given soon after harvest, and a second, and commonly a third, early in spring; the land is then laid up into ridgelets, from twenty-seven to thirty inches broad, as for turnips, and manured in the same manner. 5309. The best manure for the potato appears to be littery farmyard dung; and the best mode of apply. ing it, immediately under the potato sets. Any manure, however, may be applied, and no plant will bear a larger dose of it, or thrive in coarser or less prepared manure: even dry straw, rushes, or spray of trees, may be made use of with success. It is alleged, however, that recent horse manure, salt, and soapers' ashes, have a tendency to give potatoes a rank taste, and to render them scabby. 5310. The best climate for the potato is one rather moist than dry, and temperate or cool, rather than hot. Hence the excellence of the Irish potatoes, which grow in a dry, loamy, calcareous soil, and moist and temperate climate: and hence, also, the inferiority of the potatoes of France, Spain, and Italy, and even Germany. In short, the potato is grown nowhere in the world to the same degree of perfection as in Ireland and Lancashire, and not even in the south of England so well as in Scotland, and the north and western counties: all which is, in our opinion, clearly attributable to the climate. 5311. The season for planting potatoes in the fields, depends much on the soil and climate. Where these are very dry, as they always ought to be for an early crop, the sets are usually put in the ground in March or earlier; but for a full crop of potatoes, April is the best time for planting. Potatoes, indeed, are often planted in the end of May, and sometimes even in June; but the crops, although often as abundant, are neither so mellow nor mature as when the sets are planted in April, or in the first eight or ten days of May. For seed, however, they are preferable. 5312. In preparing the sets of potatoes, some cultivators recommend large sets, others small potatoes entire, and some large potatoes entire. Others, on the ground of experience, are equally strenuous in support of small cuttings, sprouts, shoots, or even only the eyes or buds. With all these different sorts of sets, good crops are stated to have been raised, though tolerable-sized cuttings of pretty large potatoes, with two or three good eyes or buds in each, are probably to be preferred. 5313. Independently of the increased expense of the seed, it is never a good practice to make use of whole potatoes as sets. The best cultivators in Ireland and Scotland invariably cut the largest and best potatoes into sets, rejecting, in the case of kidney potatoes, the root or mealy end as having no bud, and the top or watery end as having too many. No objection is made to two or even three buds on each set, though one is considered sufficient. A very slight exercise of common sense might have saved the advocates for shoots, scooped out eyes, &c., their experiments and arguments; it being evident, as Brown has observed, to every one with any practical knowledge of the nature of vegetables, that the strength of the stem at the outset depends in direct proportion upon the vigour and power of the set. The set, therefore, ought to be large, rarely smaller than the fourth part of the potato, and if the potato is of small size, one half of it may be profitably used: at all events, rather err in giving over-large sets, than in making them too small; because by the first error no great loss can be sustained; whereas, by the other, a feeble and late crop may be the consequence. It is ascertained beyond doubt in Lancashire, Cheshire, and other counties in the north and west of England, that sets taken from the top or watery end of the potato, planted at the same time with sets taken at the root or mealy end, will ripen their tubers a fortnight sooner. It is ascertained also, and accounted for on the same general principle, that the plants raised from unripe tubers are both vigorous and more early than such as are raised from tubers perfectly ripe. (See Gard. Mog.vol.ii.) 5314. Sets should always be cut some days before planting, that the wounds may dry up; but no harm will result from performing this operation several weeks or months beforehand, provided the sets are not |