SUBSECT. 1. Mustard. - Sinapis, L. Tetrad. Siliq. L. and Cruciferæ, J. Moutarde or Sénevé, Fr.; Senf, Ger.; Mostaza, Span.; and Senapa, Ital. 5479. There are two species of mustard in cultivation in the fields, the white mustard (Sinapis alba, fig.596 a), and the black or common (Sinapis nigra, b). Both are annuals, natives of Britain and most parts of Europe, and cultivated there and in China, for an unknown period. White mustard flowers in June, and ripens its seeds in July. Black mustard is rather earlier. Mustard is an exhausting crop, but profitable when the soil answers, and especially in breaking up rich loamy lands, as it comes off earlier, and allows time for preparing the soil for wheat. In breaking up very rich grass lands, three or four crops are sometimes taken in succession. It cannot however be considered as a good general crop for the farmer, even if there was a demand for it, as, like most of the commercial plants, it yields little or no manure. The culture of black or common mustard is by far the most extensive, and is chiefly carried on in the county of Durham. The seed of the black mustard, like that of the wild sort, and also of the wild radish, will remain in the ground, if below the depth of three or four inches, for ages without germinating, hence, once introduced it is difficult to extirpate. Whenever they throw the earth out of their ditches in the Isle of Ely, the bank comes up thick with mustard; the seed falling into the water and sinking to the botttom, will remain embalmed in the mud for ages without vegetation. 5480. Any rich loamy soil will raise a crop of mustard, and no other preparation is required than that of a good deep ploughing and harrowing sufficient to raise a mould on the surface. The seeds may be sown broad-cast at the rate of one lippie per acre; harrowed in and guarded from birds till it comes up, and hoed and wed before it begins to shoot. In Kent, according to the survey of Boys, white mustard is cultivated for the use of the seedsmen in London. In the tillage for it, the ploughed land is, he says, harrowed over, and then furrows are stricken about eleven or twelve inches apart, sowing the seed in the proportion of two or three gallons per acre in March. The crop is afterwards hoed and kept free from weeds. 5481. Mustard is reaped in the beginning of September, being tied in sheaves, and left three or four days on the stubble. It is then stacked in the field. It is remarked that rain damages it. A good crop is three or four quarters an acre: the price from 78. to 20s. a bushel. Three or four crops are sometimes taken running, but this must in most cases be bad husbandry. 5482. The use of the white mustard is or should be chiefly for medical and horticultural purposes, though it is often ground into flour, and mixed with the black, which is much stronger, and far more difficult to free from its black husks. The black or common mustard is exclusively used for grinding into flour of mustard, and the black husk is separated by very delicate machinery. The French either do not attempt, or do not succeed in separating the husk, as their mustard when brought to table is always black. It is, however, more pungent than ours, because that quality resides chiefly in the husk. The constituents of mustard seed appear to be chiefly starch, mucus, a bland fixed oil, an acrid volatile oil, and an ammoniacal salt. The fresh powder, Dr. Cullen observes, shews little pungency; but when it has been moistened with vinegar and kept for a day, the essential acrid oil is evolved, and it is then much more acrid. 5483. The leaves of the mustard family, like those of all the radish and brassica tribe, are eaten green by cattle and sheep, and may be used as pot-herbs. The haulm is commonly burned; but is better employed as litter for the straw-yard, or for covering underdrains, if any happen to be forming at the time, 5484. As substitutes for either the black or common mustard, most of the Cruciferæ enumerated when treating of oil plants (5475.), may be used, especially the Sinapis arvensis or charlock, S. orientalis, Chinensis, and Brassicata, the latter commonly cultivated in China. The Raphanis raphanistrum, common in corn-fields, and known as the wild mustard, is so complete a substitute, that it is often separated from the refuse corn and sold as Durham mustard seed. SUBSECT 2. The Canary Grass. - Phalaris canariensis, L. Trian. Dig. L. and Gramineæ, J. (fig. 597.) 5485. The canary grass is an annual, with a culm from a foot to eighteen inches in height, and lively green leaves almost half an inch in width. The seeds are thickly 597 set in a subovate panicle or spike. It is a native of the Canary islands; but now naturalized in several parts of England, and on the continent. It flowers from June to August, and ripens its seeds from September to October. It has long been cultivated in the Isle of Thanet, and a few other places in Kent and Essex: it is there considered an uncertain crop, both on account of the seasons, it being the latest in ripening its seeds of all the grasses, and the fluctuation of prices. 5486. The culture of the canary grass consists in pulverising a loamy soil which is in good heart, or manuring it if worn out; though every judicious farmer tries to avoid giving manure to a corn crop unless after a naked fallow. The seeds are sown in rows at about a foot apart, generally by the ribbing process: the season the month of February, and the quantity of seed four or five gallons per acre. The after-culture consists in repeated hoings and weedings. 5487. The reaping process seldom commences before the end of September. The culm being leafy, and the seed difficult to separate from the chaff, it requires to lie in handfuls for a week or more, and to remain more than that time in the field after being tied up in sheaves. In the Isle of Thanet it is cut with a hook, provincially called a twibil and a hink; by which it is laid in lumps, or wads, of about a sheaf each. The seed clings remarkably to the husk; and, in order to detach it, the crop is left a long time on the ground, to receive moisture sufficient to loosen the enveloping chaff, otherwise it would be hardly possible to thresh out the seed. The wads are turned from time to time, to have the full benefit of the rains and sun. 5488. The common produce of canary grass is from thirty to thirty-four bushels per acre; but under the best management in the Isle of Thanet it is often fifty bushels per acre. 5489. The use of the seed is chiefly as food for Canary and other cage and aviary birds. The chaff is superior to that of every other culmiferous plant for horsefood, and the straw, though short, is also very nutritive. SUBSECT. 3. Buck-wheat.- Polygonum fagopyrum, L. Octan. Trig. L.; and Polygo J. Blé noir or Blé Sarrazin, Fr. (corrupted from Had-razin, red corn, Celtic); Buchweitzen, Ger.; Trigo negro, Span.; and Miglio, Ital. (fig. 598.) nea, 5490. The buck-wheat, or more properly beech-wheat, (from the resemblance of the seeds to beech mast, as its Latin and German names import,) is an annual fibrous-rooted plant, with upright flexuose leafy stems, generally tinged with red, and rising from a foot to eighteen inches in height. The flowers are either white, or tinged with red, and make a handsome appearance in July, and the seeds ripen in August and September. Its native country is unknown; though it is attributed to Asia. It is cultivated in China and other countries of the east as a bread corn, and has been grown from time immemorial in Britain, and most parts of Europe as food for poultry, horses, and also for its meal to be used in domestic purposes. The universality of its culture is evidently owing to the little labor it requires: it will grow on the poorest soil, and produce a crop in the course of three or four months. It was cultivated so early as Gerard's time (1597), to be ploughed in as manure: but at present, from its inferior value as a grain, and its yielding very little haulm for fodder or manure, it is seldom grown but by gentlemen in their plantations to encourage game. Arthur Young, however, "recommends farmers in general to try this crop. Nineteen parishes out of twenty, through the kingdom, know it only by name. It has numerous excellencies, perhaps as many to good farmers, as any other grain or pulse in use. It is of an enriching nature, having the quality of preparing for wheat, or any other crop. One bushel sows an acre of land well, which is but a fourth of the expense of seed-barley. It should not be sown till the end of May. This is important, for it gives time in the spring to kill all the seed-weeds in the ground, and brings no disagreeable necessity from bad weather in March or April, to sow barley, &c. so late as to hazard the crop. It is as valuable as barley, and is the best of all crops for sowing grass-seeds with, giving them the same shelter as barley or oats, without robbing." If all these things were true at the time, they are now only matter of history. 5491. In the culture of the buck-wheat the soil may be prepared in different ways according to the intention of the future crop; and for this there is time till the end of May, if seed is the object, and till June if it is to be ploughed in. It will grow on any soil, but only produce a good crop on one that is tolerably rich. It is considered one of the best crops to sow along with grass seed; and yet, (however inconsistent,) the voluminous writer last quoted, endeavours to prove, that buck-wheat, from the closeness of its growth at the top, smothers and destroy weeds, whilst clover and grass seeds receive considerable benefit by the shade it affords them from the piercing heat of the sun!! 5492. The season of sowing cannot be considered earlier than the last week of April or first of May, as the young plants are very apt to be destroyed by frost. The mode is always broad-cast, and the quantity of seed a bushel per acre; it is harrowed in, and requires no other culture than pulling out the larger weeds, and guarding from birds till the reaping season. 5493. Buck-wheat is harvested by mowing in the manner of barley. After it is mown, it must lie several days, till the stalks be withered, before it be housed. It is in no danger of the seeds falling, nor does it suffer much by wet. From its great succulency it is liable to heat, on which account it is better to put it in small stacks of five or six loads each, than in either a large one or a barn. 5494. The produce of the grain of this plant may be stated upon the average, at between three and four quarters per acre; it would be considerably more did all the grains ripen together, but that never appears to be the case, as some parts of the same plant will be in flower, whilst others have perfected their seed. 5495. The use of the grain of buck-wheat in this country, is almost entirely for feeding poultry, pigeons, and swine It may also be given to horses, which are said to thrive well on it; but the author of The New Farmer's Calendar, says, he thinks he has seen it produce a stupefying effect. It has been used in the distillery in England, and is a good deal used in that way, and also as horse-corn on the continent. Young says, a bushel goes farther than two bushels of oats, and mixed with at least four times as much bran, will be full feed for any horse a week. Four bushels of the meal, put up at four hundred weight, will fatten a hog of sixteen or twenty stone in three weeks, giving him afterwards three bushels of Indian corn or hog-pease, broken in a mill, with plenty of water. Eight bushels of buck-wheat meal will go as far as twelve bushels of barley meal. 5496 The meal of buck-wheat is made into thin cakes called crumpits in Italy and even in some parts of England, and it is supposed to be nutritious, and not apt to turn acid upon the stomach. (Withering.) 5497. The blossoms of this plant afford a rich repast to bees, both from the quantity of honey they contain, and from their long duration. On this account it is much prized in France and Germany, and Du Hamel advises bee farmers to carry their hives to fields of this crop in the autumn, as well as to heath lands. 5498. The haulm of buck-wheat is said to be more nourishing than clover when cut while in flower. Banister says, it has a peculiar inebriating quality. He has seen hogs which have fed heartily on it, come home in such a state of intoxication as to be unable to walk without reeling. The dried haulm is not eaten readily by any description of animal, and affords but very little manure. On the whole, the crop is of most value when ploughed in green for the latter purpose. As a seed crop, the author of The New Farmer's Calendar, seems justified in saying, it is only valuable on land that will grow nothing else. The Polygonum tartaricum has been recommended for field culture, but Von Thaer, who tried it repeatedly, found its produce quite insignificant. SUBSECT. 4. Of other Plants used in Domestic Economy; which are or may be cultivated in the Fields. 5499. Many garden plants might be cultivated in the fields, especially near large towns where manure is easily procured, and a demand for the produce exists. Among such plants may be mentioned the cress, parsley, onion, leek, lettuce, radish, &c. There are also some plants which enter into the agriculture of foreign countries where the climate is not dissimilar to our own, which might be very effectually cultivated in this country were it desirable. Among these are the tobacco and the chiccory, the latter for its roots as a substitute for coffee. The lettuce might be grown for its milky juice, as a substitute for, or rather a variety of opium, Of dwarf fruits, as the strawberry, currant, gooseberry, raspberry, &c. we add nothing here, having already alluded to them in treating of orchards. 5500. The agriculturist who attempts to grow any of the above plants, can hardly expect to succeed unless his knowledge extends beyond the mere routine of country husbandry, either by reading and the study of the nature of vegetables, or by some experience in the practice of gardening. No farmer on a moderately extensive scale will find it worth while to attempt such productions, whatever may be his knowledge or resources; and for the garden-farmer, or the curious or speculative amateur, we would recommend observation and enquiry round the metropolis, and the reading of books on horticulture. All that we shall do here, will be to give some indications of the culture and management of cress, chiccory, and tobacco. 5501. The garden cress (Lepidum sativum, L.), too well known to require any description, is grown in the fields in Essex, the seed being in some demand in the London market. It is sown on any sort of soil, but strong loam is the most productive. After being well pulverised on the surface, the seed is sown broad-cast and lightly harrowed in. The season of sowing for the largest produce is March, but it will ripen if sown the first week in May. The quantity of seed to an acre varies from two to four pecks, according to the richness of the land; the seed will not grow the second year. No after-culture is required but weeding. The crop is reaped and left in handfuls to dry for a few days, and then threshed out like rapeseed or mustard in the field. 5502. The use of the cress seed is chiefly for sowing to cut for young turkeys; and for forcing salads by the London cooks on hot moist flannels and porous earthenware vessels. A very considerable quantity is also used in horticulture, it being one of the chief early salads, and cut when in the seed leaf. The haulm is of very little use as litter, and on the whole, the crop is exhausting. 5503. The culture of the chiccory as an herbage plant has already been given (5074.); when grown for the root to be used as a substitute for coffee, it may be sown on the same soil as the carrot, and thinned out to the same distance as that plant. These roots are taken up in the first autumn after sowing in the same manner as those of the carrot. When they are to be manufactured on a large scale, they are partially dried, and in that state sold to the manufacturers of the article, who wash them, cut them in pieces, roast them on a kiln, and grind them between fluted rollers into a powder, which is packed up in papers, containing from two ounces to three or four pounds. In that state it is sold either as a substitute for coffee, or for mixing with it. But when a private family cultivate this plant for home manufacture, the roots are laid in a cellar among sand, and a few taken out as wanted, washed, cut into slices, roasted in the coffee roaster till they become of a brown color, and then passed as wanted through the coffee mill. 5504. The value of the chiccory as a coffee plant, Von Thaer observes in 1810, is proved by its having been cultivated for that purpose for thirty years. Dr. Howison has written some curious papers on the subject in The Caledonian Horticultural Memoirs, (vol iv.), and both that gentleman and Dr. Duncan approve of its dietetic qualities. The former indeed says, he thinks it preferable to coffee, which may be a matter of taste, as some prefer the flavor of the powdered roots of dandelion to that of either coffee or chiccory. Dr. Duncan is of opinion that chiccory might be cultivated with great national advantages as a substitute for the exotic berry, (Disco. to Caled. Hort. Soc. 1820.) 5505. Of the tobacco, there are two species which may be cultivated in this country: the Nicotiana tabaccum, or Virginia tobacco, which is almost the only sort imported, and the N. rustica, common tobacco, the Bauern tabac of Germany, and cultivated in that country, Sweden, and many parts of France, Switzerland, Holland, &c., both for private use and manufacture for public sale. Almost every one who occupies a cottage. and garden in these countries grows as much as supplies their pipes; but it is rarely made into snuff or chewing tobacco by private families. The culture of tobacco is prohibited in Britain for political reasons; but before that law was given, it was grown and cured in a very sufficient manner by farmers both in England and Scotland. At present every family may grow a sufficient quantity for their own use. 5506. The soil for tobacco must be deep, loamy, and rich; well pulverised before planting, and frequently stirred and kept free from weeds during the growth of the plants. The plants in this country should be raised in a warm part of the garden: the seed is very small, and should be sown and lightly covered, and then the surface pressed down with the back of the spade in the middle of March. In May they will be fit to transplant, and should be placed in lines three feet apart every way. If no rain fall, they should be watered two or three times. Every morning and evening the plants must be looked over, in order to destroy a worm which sometimes invades the bud. When they are about four or five inches high, they are to be cleared from weeds and moulded up. As soon as they have eight or nine leaves; and are ready to put forth a stalk, the top is nipped off, in order to make the leaves longer and thicker. After this the buds which sprout at the joints of the leaves are all plucked, and not a day is suffered to pass without examining the leaves, to destroy a large caterpillar, which is sometimes very destructive to them. 5507. The following is the mode of taking and fermenting the leaves in America. When they are fit for cutting, which is known by the brittleness of the leaves, they are cut with a knife close to the ground; and after lying some time, are carried to the drying shed or house, where the plants are hung up by pairs, upon lines, leaving a space between, that they may not touch one another. In this state they remain to sweat and dry. When perfectly dry, the leaves are stripped from the stalks, and made into small bundles, tied with one of the leaves. These bundles are laid in heaps, and covered with blankets. Care is taken not to overheat them, for which reason the heaps are laid open to the air from time to time, and spread abroad. This operation is repeated till no more heat is perceived in the heaps, and the tobacco is then. stowed in casks for exportation. 5508. To save seed allow one or two of the best plants to run, they will flower and be very ornamental in June, July, and August, and ripen their seeds in September and October. 5509. In the manufacture of tobacco, the leaves are first cleaned of any earth, dirt, or decayed parts; next. they are gently moistened with salt and water, or water in which some other salt, and sometimes other ingredients have been dissolved, according to the taste of the fabricator. This liquor is called tobacco sauce. The next operation is to remove the midrib of the leaf, then the leaves are mixed together to render the quality of whatever may be the final manufacture or application equal; next they are cut into pieces with a fixed knife, and crisped or curled before a fire; the succeeding operation is to spin them into cords, or twist them into rolls by winding them with a kind of mill round a stick. These operations are performed by the grower, and in this state (of rolls) the article is sent from America to other countries, where the tobacconists cut it into chaff like shreds by a machine like a straw-cutter, for smoking; form it into small cords for chewing; or dry and grind it for snuff. In manufacturing snuff various matters are added to give it an agreeable scent; and hence the numerous varieties of snuff. The three principal kinds are called rappees, Scotch or Spanish, and thirds. The first is only granulated; the second is reduced to a very fine powder, and the third is the siftings of the second sort. In a former section (5439.) we have hinted that no farmer who cultivates the hop need be without a vegetable equal to asparagus, or fibre similar to that of flax to employ his servants in spinning; and from the foregoing observations it would seem that whoever has a garden may grow his own coffee and tobacco. SECT. V. Of Plants which are or may be grown in the Fields for Medicinal Purposes. 5510. A number of medical plants were formerly grown in the fields; but vegetable drugs are now much less the fashion; a few powerful sorts are retained, which are either collected wild or are natives of other countries, and the rest of the pharmacopoeia is chiefly made up of minerals. It may safely be affirmed that there are no plants belonging to this section which deserve the notice of the general farmer; but we have thought it desirable to notice a few sometimes grown by farming gardeners, and which may be considered as belonging almost equally to horticulture and agriculture, or as points of connection between the two arts. These are the saffron, liquorice, rhubarb, lavender, mints, chamomile, and thyme. 5511. The saffron or autumn crocus (Crocus sativus, L. fig. 599 a.), is a bulbous-rooted perennial, which has been long cultivated in the south of Europe, and since Edward III.'s time in England, and chiefly at Saffron Walden in Essex. It was abundantly cultivated there, and in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Herefordshire, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, but the quantity of land under this crop has been gradually lessening for the last century, and especially within the last fifty years, so that its culture is now almost entirely confined to a few parishes round Saffron Walden. (Young's Essex.) This is owing partly to the material being less in use than formerly, and partly to the large importations from the East, often, as Professor Martyn observes, adulterated with bastard saffron (Carthamus tinctorius) and marygolds (Calendula officinalis). 5512. The bulbs of the saffron are planted on a prepared soil not poor nor a very stiff clay, but if possible a hazel mould on chalk. The bulbs are planted in July, in rows six inches apart across the ridges, and at three inches distance in the rows. 5513. The flowers, which are purple and appear in September, are gathered, carried home, and the stigmas picked out, together with a portion of the style; these are dried on a kiln between layers of paper, and under the pressure of a thick board to form the mass into cakes. 5514. Two pounds of dried cake is the average crop of an acre after first planting, and twenty-four pounds for the two next years. After the third crop the roots are taken up, divided, and re-planted 5515. The uses of saffron in medicine, domestic economy, and the arts, are various. It is detersive, resolvent, anodyne, cephalic, opthalmic, &c.; but its use is not without danger: in large doses it promotes drowsiness, lethargy, vomiting, and delirium; even its smell is injurious, and has been known to produce syncope. It is used in sauces by the Spaniards and Poles; here and in France it enters into creams, biscuits, conserves, liquors, &c. and is used for coloring butter and cheese, and also by painters and dyers. 5516. The liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra, L. fig. 599 b.) is a deep-rooting perennial, of the leguminosae, with herbaceous stems rising four or five feet high. It has long been much cultivated in Spain; and since Elizabeth's time has been grown in different parts of England. 5517. The soil for the liquorice should be a deep sandy loam, trenched by the spade or plough, or the aid of both, to two and a half or three feet in depth, and manured if necessary. The plants are procured from old plantations, and consist of the side roots, which have eyes or buds. These may be taken off, either in autumn when a crop of liquorice is taken up for use, and laid in earth till spring, or taken from a growing plantation, as wanted for planting. The planting season may be either October, or February and March. In general the latter is preferred. The plants are dibbled in in rows three feet apart, and from eighteen inches to two feet in the row, according to the richness of the soil. The after-culture consists in horsehoeing and deep stirring, in weeding, and in cutting over and carrying away the haulm every autumn after it is completely withered. As the plants do not rise above a foot the first season, a crop of onions or beans is sometimes taken in the intervals. The plants must have three summers' growth, at the end of which the roots may be taken up by trenching over the ground. The roots are either immediately sold to the brewers' druggists, or to common druggists, or preserved, like carrots or potatoes, in sand, till wanted for use. They are used in medicine and porter-brewing. 5518. The rhubarb (Rheum palmatum, L. fig. 599 c.) is a perennial, with thick oval roots, which strike deep into the ground, large palmate leaves, and flower-stems six or eight feet high. The Society of Arts exerted themselves for many years to promote the culture of this plant, as did Dr. Hope, of Edinburgh. It has accordingly |