The Florida agriculturist., 1889-01-09
FoR THE FLORIDA AeR1cU1ruarsr.
The Castor Bean.


marketiO Tor castor beans, the price paid,
ETC., would state that the main market
for the product in the United States is at
ST. Louis, Mo. There are two large mills
IN that city working castor beans, and L
know of none at any other place. ST.
Louis has always been the market for
castor beans mills were there working
them the same as now forty years ago.
With reference to the price paid | cannot
be so precise, since that, as in the case OF
all other products, lis subject to change.
But may risk the assertion that, taking
one year with another, producing castor
beans brings avery fair return to the farm-
ers growing them.
/ am satisfied from my own extensive
experience with the crop that Florida,
and indeed all the lower coast belt, could
beat the world in castor bean production.
The crop is not now grown over any very
extensive territory in this country, Hi
nois, Missouri and Kentucky producing
about all that goes to market. Andeven
in these States the growing is conducted
in the face of at least one drawback
shortness of season. To succeed, thecrop
must be put in extremely early for the
climate, and. then the frosts of early fall
cut it off before it has attained to more
than half it's best as would characterize it
in Florida. In Florida it would run and
give it's greatest yield from four to eight
weeks later than in either of the States
named
Ofcourse there might be such a thing as
over production, with only the present
limited market, but no thought of this
kind ought to deter us from going into
castor bean culture, and thus developing
for our section a valuable and as yet un-
worked industry The world wants the
products of the castor bean, and so far
as concerns the market, that invariable
rule which sets forth that a demand al
ways brings a supply, would be sure to
hold good. In other words, once it was
an established fact that castor beans
could be more successfully raised in Flor
ida, and along our lower sea coast gen
orally, than where they are now raised,
mills swOuldprOmptly spring into existence
among us ready to work them up. In
deed we have the mills already the mills
now working cotton seed. An unimpOrtant
attachment would enable those same mills
to work castor beans as well as cotton
seed, and the only reason why each mill
does not now have such attachment lies
in the fact that there are no castor beans
to be worked.
The using up of a little more space tell
ing all about the culture and management
of the castor bean, as practiced in Illinois.
Missouri and Kentucky, may not be con-
sidered out of place in this connection.
The plant under consideration is pretty
generally known throughout the South
ern States by thepopular name of Palma
Christi. Botanists, or, perhaps | had
best have said florists, have divided it
into several species, though really they
are scarcely entitled to consideration as
more than varieties. For instance, the
lowest-growing kind is referred to scien-
tifcally as Ricinus communis, the tallest-
growing kind as R. bOrbOniensis, and SO
on, for several The first named is the
kind grown for the production of oils, and
in the regions where grown as a crop it is
called simply the castor bean.
The castor bean is gross feeder, and
needs rich coarse soil. 1t is plaI ted in
rows on the plan of planting corn, and on
account of requiring all the season it can
get, the planting is done SO soon as dan
ger of frost is over. The rows are usually
laid off about five feet apart, and thehills
are placed from three and half to four
feet in the row. When the plants are es-
tablished they are thinned down to two
stalks in thehill After culture is extreme
ly simple Bar off when the plants are
large enough to admit of it, and later,
when from twelve to eighteen inches high,
throw back the dirt. This is all there is
oft. Thefield is fenced OfffrOm other fields,
and after the return of the dirt all thehogs
~~f4 / Il. H111T 1nHI in