The best cultivated varieties are—
The Dorchester—Introduced from Massachusetts, and a vigorous, large, regular bearer.
Lawton, or New Rochelle.—This is the great blackberry of this country, by the side of which, no other, yet known, need be cultivated. It is a very hardy, great grower. It is an enormous bearer of such fruit that it commands thirty cents per quart, when other blackberries sell for ten. On a rather moist, heavy loam, and especially in the shade, its productions are truly wonderful. Continues to ripen daily for six weeks.
Propagation is by offshoots from the old roots, or by seeds. When by seeds, they should be planted in mellow soil, and where the sun will not shine on them between eight and five o'clock in hot weather. In transplanting, much care is requisite. The bark of the roots is like evergreens, very tender and easily broken, or injured by exposure to the atmosphere; hence, take up carefully, and keep covered from sun and air until transplanted. This is destined to become one of the universally-cultivated small fruits—as much so as the strawberry. The best manures are, wood-ashes, leaves, decayed wood, and all kinds of coarse litter, with stable manure well incorporated with the soil, before transplanting. Animal manure should not be very plentifully applied.
We have seen in Illinois a vigorous bush, and apparently good bearer, of perfect fruit—a variety called white blackberry. The fruit was greenish and pleasant to the taste.
BLACK RASPBERRY
The common wild, found by fences, especially in the margin of forests, in most parts of the United Sates, is very valuable for cultivation in gardens. Coming in after the red raspberry, and ripening in succession until the blackberry commences, it is highly esteemed. Cultivated with little animal manure, but plenty of sawdust, tan-bark, old leaves, wood, chips, and coarse litter, it improves very much from its wild state. Fruit is all borne on bushes of the previous year's growth; hence, after they have done bearing, cut away the old bushes. To secure the greatest yield on rich land, cut off the tops of the shoots rising for next year's fruit, when they are four or five feet high. The result will be, strong shoots from behind all the leaves on the upper part of the stalk, each of which will bear nearly as much fruit as would the whole have done without clipping. A dozen of these would occupy but a small place in a border, or by a wall. Not an American garden should be found without them.
BONES
Bones are one of the most valuable manures. They yield the phosphates in large measure. On all land needing lime, they are very valuable. The heads, &c., about butchers' shops will bear a transportation of twenty miles to put upon meadows. Break them with the head of an axe, and pound them into the sod, even with the surface. They add greatly to the products of a meadow. Ground, they make one of the best manures of commerce. A cheap method for the farmer is to deposite a load of horse-manure, and on that a load of bones, and alternate each, till he has used up all his bones. Cover the last load of bones deep with manure. It will make a splendid hotbed, and the fermentation of the manure will dissolve or pulverize the bones, and the heap will become one mass of the most valuable manure, especially for roots and vines, and all vegetables requiring a rich, fine manure.
BORECOLE, OR KALE
There are some fifteen or twenty kinds cultivated in Europe. Two only, the green and the brown, are desirable in this country. Cultivate as cabbage. In portions of the middle states they will stand the frosts of winter well, without much protection; further north, they need protection with a little brush and straw during severe frosts. Those grown on rather hard land are better for winter; being less succulent, they endure cold better. Cut them off for use whenever you choose. They do not head like cabbage; they have full bunches of curled leaves. Cut off so as to include all, not over eight inches long. In winter, after having been pretty well exposed to the frost, they are very fine. Set out the stumps early in spring, and they will yield a profusion of delicious sprouts. This would be a valuable addition to many of our kitchen gardens.
BROCCOLI
This may be regarded as a late flowering species of cauliflower. It should be planted and treated as cabbage, and fine heads will be formed, in the middle states, in October: at the South much earlier, according to latitude. Take up in November, and preserve as cabbage, and good ones may be had in winter. To prevent ravages of insects, mix ashes in the soil when transplanting, or fresh loam or earth from a new field; or trench deep, so as to throw up several inches of subsoil, which had not before been disturbed.
To save seed, transplant some of the best in spring; break off all the lower sprouts, allowing only a few of the best centre ones to grow. Tie them to stakes, to prevent destruction by storms. Be sure to have nothing else of the cabbage kind near your seed broccoli.
BROOM CORN
Cultivated like other corn, only that this is more generally planted in drills. Three feet apart, and six inches in the drill, it yields more weight of better corn to the acre than to have it nearer. The great fault in raising this crop is getting it too thick. The finest-looking brush is of corn cut while yet so green that the seed is useless. But the brush is stronger, and will make better brooms for wear, when the corn is allowed to stand until the seed is hard, though not till the brush is dry. The land should be rich. This is a hard, exhausting crop for the soil. To harvest, bend down, two feet from the ground, two rows, allowing them so to fall across each other as to expose all the heads. Cut off the heads, with six or eight inches of the stalk, and place them on top of the bent rows to dry. In a week, in dry weather, they will be well cured, and should be then spread thin, under cover, in plenty of air. There is no worse article to heat and mould. In large crops, they usually take off the seed before curing; it is much lighter to handle, and less bulky. It may be done then, or in winter, as you prefer. The seed is removed on a cylinder eighteen inches long, and two and a half feet in diameter, having two hundred wrought nails with their points projecting. It is turned by a crank, like a fanning mill. The corn is held in a convenient handful, like flax on a hatchel. Where large quantities are to be cleaned of the seed, power is used to turn the machine. Ground or boiled, the seed makes good feed for most animals. Dry, it has too hard a shell. Fowls, with access to plenty of gravel, do well on it. Broom-corn is not a very profitable crop, except to those who manufacture their own corn into brooms. There is much labor about it, and considerable hazard of injuring the crop, by the inexperienced; hence, young farmers had, generally, better let it alone. There are two varieties—they may be forms of growth, from peculiar habits of culture—one, short, with a large, stiff brush running up through the middle, with short branches to the top, called pine-top: it is of no value;—the other is a long, fine brush, the middle being no coarser than the outside. It should be planted with a seed-drill, to make the rows straight and narrow for the convenience of cultivation. Harrowing with a span of horses, with a V drag, one front tooth out, as soon as the corn is up, is beneficial to the crop.
BRUSSELS SPROUTS
This is a species of cabbage. A long stem runs up, on which grow numerous cabbage-heads in miniature. The centre head is small and of little use, and the large leaves drop off early. It will grow among almost anything else, without injury to either. It is raised from seed like cabbage, and cultivated in all respects the same. Eighteen inches apart each way is a proper distance, as the plant spreads but little. Good, either as a cabbage, or when very small, as greens. They are good even after very hard frosts. By forwarding in hotbed in the spring, and by planting late ones for winter, they may be had most of the year. If they are disposed to run to seed too early, it may be prevented by pulling up, and setting out again in the shade. Save seed as from cabbage, but use great caution that they are not near enough to receive the farina from any of the rest of the cabbage-tribe.
BUCKTHORN
This is the most valuable of the thorn tribe, for hedge, in this country. It never suffers from those enemies that destroy so much of the hawthorn. This is also used for dyeing and for medicine.
BUCKWHEAT
This will grow well on almost any soil; even that too poor for most other crops