Part 1
Transcriber’s Notes
• Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). • Text in bold is enclosed by equal signs (=bold=). • The following issues should be noted, along with the resolution:
5 dry lo[o/a]m for the carrot patch. Replaced.
16 three hundred sto[r/n]e hog so fat, that a man of Replaced. seventy-five
17 meal per day, I will fatten a three hundred Replaced. sto[r/n]e hog so
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INDEX.
PAGE Kind of Soil for Carrots, 5 Sowing Carrots, 6 Tilling ” 10 Hoeing ” 11 Weeding ” 12 Digging ” 13 Storing ” 15 The Value of Carrots, 16 Carrots _vs._ Other Roots, 17 How to Raise and Clean the Seed, 18 How to Select Good Seed, 19 Raising Cabbage, 20 Transplanting Cabbage, 21 Tilling ” 23 Heading ” 23 Lice on ” 24 Gathering ” 25 Five Acres Enough, 26 To Make Plenty of Manure for these Five Acres, 27 Every Man his own Barometer, 28 Weather Sayings, &c., 30
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TEN YEARS’ EXPERIENCE
IN RAISING
CARROTS AND CABBAGE.
BY
H. A. COOK, Hillsdale, Col. Co., N. Y.
New York: BROWN & HEWITT, PRINTERS, 37 PARK ROW. 1866.
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
H. A. COOK,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
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INTRODUCTION.
Having observed from early youth by the little garden bed that carrots were a greatly productive crop, and the most nutritious root that I grew, I desired to try their cultivation on a large scale.
The idea seemed to be indelible on my mind, and as soon as age and circumstances would allow I essayed to gratify my desire. My great obstacle was Mr. Weed, which was bound to get ahead of my carrots; but being somewhat indefatigable in my energies, I gave close application to years of experiments in devising a plan how I should raise them without such a heavy tax upon the back, which seemed to almost “crack” under the old system. I first saw that I must be careful in selecting my seed, then I must devise a plan to force it, and then seek a plan to sow it (seeing that I could not sow it with a drill), then I must devise a different mode of cultivation, and lastly a plan to gather them more easily.
After having reduced my experiments to a system, and found that I could raise them with less than half the expense of the old way, I conceived the idea of putting my plan of raising in the form of a pamphlet, and disclosing it to the world. While raising carrots I also experimented on cabbages, and found them also to be a remunerative crop. The success which I reached in raising them I attribute to a composition which I apply to the roots, so that they may be transplanted in a dry day instead of a wet one, thereby leaving the ground mellow; my entirely new mode of culture, and, lastly, my valuable composition (which is simple, cheap, and in the reach of all) for the heads, which augments the crop by half at least. Here, reader, I will leave you to peruse the following pages.
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TEN YEARS’ EXPERIENCE
IN RAISING
CARROTS AND CABBAGE.
I estimate that I can raise one acre of carrots as easily as two acres of corn. Upon keeping a close account in the year 1864 of my expenses in raising an acre of 500 bushels, I found it to be $50, aside from interest of land. At least he who will follow the instructions of the following pages may raise them at a cost of 10 cents per bushel.
_Kind of Soil._—Should be the same as for corn. Loose ground, even, quite moist, will raise the largest carrots in a dry season, while a sandy or quite gravelly soil will do the best in a wet season. It is best to select a somewhat dry loam for the carrot patch.
Plow the ground in autumn to kill all grass and weed roots, simultaneously destroying many weed seeds, and level the plot well that it may be more easily leveled in spring. Manure should also be plowed under in the fall, that most of the weed seeds which it contains will be rendered lifeless by the action of the winter’s frost. Hog manure composted with swamp muck is the best. If from necessity you must manure in spring, look to it that your manure has no weed-seed in it.
Never put carrots two years in succession upon the same ground, for they seem to be very exhausting to a certain ingredient of the soil necessary for their growth, and only applicable to their nature; however, not rendering the soil futile for almost any other crop, or apparently not diminishing its strength more than an ordinary corn crop.
_Kind of Seed._—The long orange is the best for nearly every purpose, although the white may grow as many bushels. Always get new seed, which you can designate by its being a lively green. Old seed is of a yellowish hue, and is much longer sprouting (a fact common to all old seeds).
_Sowing._—Sow as early as the dryness of the ground will admit—if it is done in April the larger will be the crop—but by all means _never work in, or be found on your ground when it is wet_, if so, you will certainly be sorry. Make it your rule never to be on your patch when the dirt adheres to your hoe.
Reader, if you adopt the plan of these pages, please remember _their italics_. By sowing early—if you are a farmer—your weeding will be done before haying, and the carrots will be ripened to dig before the usual heavy fall rains come on. Carrots that have ripened before digging seem to have more solidity, and are not so watery as those which are sowed late, and consequently dug when growing. Hence we must draw the inference that early sowed carrots are worth more for feeding, as with any vegetable that ripens before gathering. These latter remarks are applicable to the 42d° of latitude. Plow deeply, as they will root as deeply as you plow, if the soil extends as far. Level the ground that you may cover the carrots more uniformly, and that in tilling you may not work the dirt from the carrots in the higher places, consequently leave the root protruding above ground, nor choke those in lower places by working the dirt into the hollows. Never ridge the drill for carrots, for in tilling you necessarily work the dirt away, and my experience is, that carrots will not thrive best except the upper end of the carrot be allowed to keep a level with the surface of the ground.
Harrow the last time in a contrary direction from which you design to sow. It pays well to handrake the ground before sowing. If the ground is sideling make your drills directly up and down the slope, that in tilling you may not work too much dirt upon the upper side of the carrot.
Now make a hand dray with thills and four prongs, or teeth, with the bottoms inclining backward (because if so, it will run more steady), and two feet apart. Make the bottoms of the teeth a little wedge shape—quite blunt.
Now draw a line across your patch, and let one prong of the dray run close to it. Returning, let one prong follow the last mark back, straightening the crook. Set the line anew every time around within two inches of the last mark, that you may the more easily keep your work straight, and all the drills a uniform distance apart, the importance of which will be seen especially at the first time of cultivating, and at the time of plowing them out in the fall, as I shall subsequently show. Do not dray out many marks ahead of sowing, as it is better to have fresh dirt come in contact with the seed. Three or four days before you wish to sow, moisten your seed thoroughly, and set it in a warmish place, say on the mantle-piece, near the stove pipe, stirring it once a day. If a few seeds should have sprouted a little at sowing time all is well; but be cautious that they do not get too dry before covering. The best carrots I ever raised, and the most easily tilled, were sprouted the sixteenth of an inch at sowing time. If the ground—from the effects of a late rain—has become too wet when you are ready to sow, and your seed is liable to sprout, put it in a bag that it may drain, and hang it in the cellar that the cool air of the cellar will keep it back. Do not keep it there more than twelve hours lest it rot, but bring it to the warm air for another twelve hours, till you think it again has a tendency to germinate, when if the ground is not yet fit to sow, go with it to the cellar again. In this way I have kept it from sprouting for eight days before my ground was fit to sow because of the long rains, when, if I had kept it behind the stove pipe it would have spoiled. In five days after sowing my carrots appeared above ground.
The utility of soaking the seed is this,—the carrots will come up quick, consequently get far the start of the weeds; you can go among them with a horse and cultivator before hoeing, besides saving once weeding and hoeing,—in fine, half the expense of raising is saved by sprouting the seed, or rather swelling it till it is just ready to sprout. With the seed prepared in this wise, probably no crop is more sure to grow and be productive of a satisfactory yield than the carrot crop.
But how shall we sow this soaked seed which sticks to everything so? About an hour before you wish to sow spread it out very thinly in pans in the sun, and wind it till it becomes non-adhesive; but be cautious that you do not dry it back to its original state, lest you kill it; however, there is not much danger of this; now turn a dinner horn (say about two feet long) bottom up, enlarge the orifice at the lower end that the seed will not clog within it. See to it that your seed is not too moist, else you cannot sift it through the fingers evenly, and it will clog in the horn. Hold the horn with a gill cup full of seed in the left hand. Sift the seed into the horn with the thumb and two front fingers of the right hand. The horn being conical the seed will rattle down its sides and seem to come out as evenly as you could place them with the fingers, if you move along with the horn with a uniform step. If nature has given you a long back you must get a long horn, lest you may not have the “back-ache.” Now traverse your drill which you have just made with your dray with the little end of your horn close to the bottom of the drill, especially if the wind blows, sowing with your fingers in the top of the horn, which, after you have become used to doing, you will perform about as fast as you can walk. Have a boy cover after you with a piece of hoop iron, say eight inches long, nailed to a hoe handle. A piece of old cradle scythe is better, being a little sharp. See that he covers all, and none more than a half inch deep. Do not sow much before covering, as the soaked seed will dry too much for its good. About two pounds of seed per acre is required, yet one and a half will do uniformly sown; better to have them too thick than too thin. Sow about four times as much seed as you wish to have if they all grew well, for many will not appear, especially if you have a few lumps or small stones in your ground; besides, in cultivating and tilling you will accidentally destroy many, and, moreover, it is better to have them come up too thick—for then you can pull them out—than too thin, for you cannot transplant them and have them do well. By thus sowing with a horn you can see if you make a mistake, whereas with a drill you cannot. For this reason I never have or will have a drill; besides, if your seed is a little moist a drill will clog, therefore with a drill you must sow dry seed, which is generally about three weeks “coming up,” while the weeds generally will hide the carrots, and it is like finding a honey bee’s teeth to find the carrots among the weeds.
With a small boy I can sow one and a half acres per day, and I estimate that is sowing them fast enough. Sow as soon as the ground is plowed, if convenient, to get the start of the weed seed.
After sowing use a heavy hand roller to pulverize the lumps; the morning is the preferable time to use the roller, as the lumps are then moist and break easily. It is said that the heavier (if the ground is dry) they are rolled the better. A friend informs me that this was also proven in England, by a horse rolling upon a carrot patch; it was found that where he rolled the carrots were much larger than elsewhere.
A roller can be made by any cobbler from a piece of log 2-1/2 feet in length. An old thrashing machine cylinder, minus the teeth, makes an excellent roller. When you have done rolling the carrot patch it is then useful for other plots.
_Tilling._—Begin as soon as you can see the rows, especially if you have a large piece. Having nearly or quite sprouted your seed before sowing, you will be enabled to take your horse, led by a boy, into the patch, and cultivate them the first thing, as you would corn, for they are now two inches above the weeds. Loosen the dirt deeply. When a plant is young is the time to give it deep tillage, that the fibrous roots can shoot out without obstruction—this should be observed in all tillage. What would you think of him who did not dig about a tree which he wishes to hastily become large, till its fibrous roots had become all twisted by their strenuous efforts to push through the hard ground? We should at once say that his tree would be dwarfish. So it is with carrots emphatically. A deep culture in all plants till there is danger of wounding the rootlets, which are shooting out into the ground made mellow by the deeply-plunged cultivator or plow, as the first cultivation is far the best. But do not practice the corresponding error of leaving deep cultivation too soon.
Having sowed the rows on a line uniformly two feet apart, and the cultivator, which should have but three teeth, as more will clog, set to the width of eighteen inches, we can now see the utility of having the rows straight. Should the dirt accidentally cover some, let the boy go through the patch with a broom and sweep them a little,—it seems to do the plants good rather than injure them. Go through twice in each row, as once seems to just loosen the weeds so that they grow better than before. You should have sowed them thick enough to allow for what the horse may destroy.
_Hoeing._—Procure small square cornered hoes, which are of the best steel, and grind them as sharp as possible. I would no more think of hoeing in my garden without a ground hoe than I would of hoeing without meals, for cutting up weeds with a dull hoe is like cutting grass with a dull scythe—it is the hardest of all work, while with a sharp hoe it is comparatively easy. This is one reason why many dislike to work in the garden. Having ground the hoe, send an experienced man—who should be able to strike almost within a hair’s breadth of a carrot and not hit it—to clip out what weeds he can get at with his hoe, also to thin them as much as possible with his hoe, but not to weed with his fingers, for his back is too long, and his time worth too much. If he understands his business the job of weeding with the fingers is but a small one. Cultivating and hoeing should be done when the ground is very dry.
_Weeding._—Weeding should not be done when the ground is very dry, as the weeds are liable to break off to sprout again more than when the ground is moist; however, if your patch is large continue to weed about as fast as you hoe, for fear it will not be done; yet bear in mind never to go on your ground when it is wet. Now employ boys whom you pay by the row—for then, they have a greater stimulus to work—whose backs are shorter than men’s, and who, if of the proper calibre, will weed as fast as men at much less cost, and do it easier. Of course they will want the superintendent’s eye over them. Thin them at the first weeding to two or three inches asunder. I verily believe I can get more tons of carrots per acre if they are one foot asunder than otherwise, but it is more work to attend them when small, and keep the weeds down. You will observe even at the first weeding that the scattering ones are the largest, conclusively proving that they should be thinned early. In fine, too much cannot be done to them when young, and _it will pay_. Still, I would not have the reader believe that he has a great task to raise them, for I set out in the beginning with the assertion that one acre of carrots can be raised as easily as two of corn. It is useless to transplant them.
Do not go among them with a horse after the bottoms become the size of a man’s finger, for if you muss the tops about at that size you are sure to stunt them. Do not take from, nor add to the dirt about their bottoms, after they become the above size. You will also stunt them (somewhat like beans) if you work among them when wet, which they will show you by their tops falling and turning a pale yellow. When doing well they will stand erect and be of a dark green color. When they have turned yellow in the fall the presumption is that they are ripe and fit to dig. The same is true of nearly all roots.
Should weeds appear after the last hoeing, take a sharp hoe and clip among them, frequently using the hand to pull the weeds, being very cautious not to disturb the carrot.
Now that cultivation is done, see to it that fowls, pigs, or other animals are not allowed to ramble among them, for they will not do well if disturbed. If you even run your finger about the top of the root you will stunt it. No root is so healthy or more sure to grow and do well than the carrot, if the instructions of the foregoing pages are thoroughly adhered to, and they excel all other crops after the root begins to show, in “standing” excessively dry or wet weather.
_Digging._—Let them remain in the ground as long as you dare for fear of warm weather, as they will keep best in the ground till quite late; however, if you have a large patch begin in time to secure them before the ground freezes. Choose a dry spell in which to dig them as they are so much cleaner to handle, and being clean are certainly worth more for stock. It is not policy to feed dirt to any kind of stock, yet the more dirt adheres to roots of any kind the better those roots will keep.
Firstly, mow the tops as closely with a scythe as possible, and pile in a convenient place to cover over your carrots after they are dug, for it is necessary to put them in heaps of about thirty bushels, that they may go through the sweating or drying process. Three or four days before putting into the cellar, or hole (so ought you with any root), then cover them with the said tops to keep them dry; still the tops are poor things to keep the frost out—straw is better, unless you wish to sell them, in which case get them off as soon as possible, for they will weigh more when first dug, for after being above ground a little they shrink in weight and size. These tops are very fine for stock as they come at a time when all other field fodder has become dry or frost bitten. I have concluded that an acre of carrot tops is worth as much for my milch cows as the hay that would have grown on a similar piece. Perhaps it would not feed quite as far at the time, but I think it would make as much milk.
Now, after having mowed and raked off the tops, send a boy with a sharp hoe to cut them off again close to the butt end of the root. Take a team with a large plow (which is adapted to turn a furrow directly bottom side up), and run it as deeply as possible along the outside of the first row, with the land side of plow about four inches from the carrot row; after thus passing through the patch, wheel and go back to the place of beginning without plowing. Now, setting the plow at the place of beginning, go through again, keeping at this time the carrot row (which has just been cut off,) a little to the right of the plow beam; perhaps it is necessary for one to lean on the beam. Now you will turn the carrots upon the edge of the last furrow; here you will again see the utility of having the rows straight. Take a potatoe hook (or which is better, an old potatoe hook which the blacksmith has drawn out to small, long, and round tines) and rake the carrots out upon the top of the ground to dry. Thus proceed with each row, always plowing through twice to a row if the carrots are two feet apart and your plow is small, but if your plow is larger than ordinary two horse land plows, you may succeed in plowing out a carrot row every time the team goes through. If you break or bruise a carrot it will not harm it if they are ripe. A carrot broken into a dozen pieces will keep as well as if it were whole. In this way I have had a man and boy dig and pick up ninety-five bushels in one day, although it was a short day of November.
After they are dug carrots are the pleasantest of all roots to handle, easily “picked up,” quite light to carry, and very accurately measured in a large basket.