Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-24
FARM AND FIELD.
The Castor Bean-It May Become an I'M
portant Crop for Northern Texas.
Humus Necessary in All Soils Fencing OH Cut
Misunderstanding Strawberries
Level Culture for Corn.
The Castor Bean for Texas.

For the Gazette.
One of the very profitable crops of this
country is the castor-oll bean. AS yet it
Is not very extensively grown, owing to
the fact that there are not many locali-
ties known to be suited to its growth
Kansas and Missouri produce most of the
castor beans now grown in the United
States, Kentucky coming in next with a
small proportion. The only important
market for the product of this country Is
now at st. Louis.
The castor bean plant has several
marked varieties-so strongly marked
that some botanists have attempted to
class them off into species. But one of
these is grown for the oil, and that one
is put down in the scientific books as
Rioinus communis. In most portions or
Texas it is known, for common, as
''Palma Christi" a name given it, we
believe, by the old Jesuits.
The castor bean is most widely known
as the article from which is made the
castor oil Of the drug stores, but the pro-
ducts of the growth are now extensively
pOSSC -
cine. Castor oil figures quite largely in
the arts, and the oil-cake resulting from
manufacturing the oil, Is highly valu-
able as a fertilizer in agriculture.
Texas, and especially Northern and
Western Texas, has every natural re-
quirement for the successful production
of the castor bean. 1t becomes what
might, with no small degree of prOpriety,
be termed q wild weed here. One sees It
along many of the washes, or bitches, far
away from cultivated lands, contesting
the rights of possession with the cookie
burr and other noXious growths. 1t Is
certainly entirely at home in Texas.
Than the castor bean no crop can be
more easily and oheaply cultivated, and
since it yields enormously, and the pro-
duct always commands good price, it
cannot DO otherwise than profitable
crop for the regions suited to its growth.
1t is furthermore good deal in the line
of what might be termed "a lazy man g
crop. - Pushing Texas may not be spe-
cially seeking after any lazy man s crop,
but possibly her people wouldn't object
to such crop, provided it paid them
well. If they didn't happen to banker
after being lazy, there are always plenty
of things for them to do in Texas, by way
of filling in the time while the laZy-man s
crop was growing. The writer Of this
article is an old Kentucky castor bean
grower, and therefore he proposes telling
THE GAZETTE readers, in few words,
how the thing is done.
The land is prepared exactly as for
corn, and the beans are planted as corn
would be planted, differing only in Civ
ing little more space. The castor bean
i afpr.
will not bear crowding together as closely
as corn.
When the plants are up six inches high
bar off as in the case of corn. When
foot or eighteen inches high throw back
the dirt, which "lays by' the crop, so
far as the working is concerned. After
this last working the lower portion of the
fence is opened here and there to let in
such small stock as hogs, goats, geese
and the like. These take care of the
grass and weeds that may spring up, but
never trouble the castor beans.
Prepare "threshing tloor' oonve-
nient TO the field, by simply scrapiug off
the surface of the grounds, say fifty
feet in diameter. When the beans begin
to ripen they must be harvested and
spread out on this, where the sunshine
threshes them.
The harvesting has good deal Of work
about it. You must go over the field
every third or fourth day and cut off
every head of fruit upon which appears
any pods that show white streaks along
their sides If this is not promptly at
tended to the beans will pop out in the
field and be lost. The usual method of
harvesting is to go between the rows with
q mule and a sled, with a goods box on
the sled as a body. The ripe punches
are cut from the stalk with sharp knife
and thrown into the box, and when the
box is full it is drawn to the threshing
floor and the heads spread out in the sun
shine. In two days the sun will have
popped the beans out, when the stems
can be raked away. The beans are then
passed through a common wheat fan to
blow out the bulls and dust, after which
they are ready to sack for market.
The yield is usually from seventy-ive
to 100 bushels to the acre, and the price
paid IN St. Louis runs at about 81 per
bushel.
The castor bean is not considered an
overly exhausting crop. 1t can bear
almost any amount of rough usage, and
stands drouth better than any crop we
know of. Texas presents a great ad-
vantage Tor IL over lndG presented Dy
Kansas or Missouri, in her longer
seasons. The crop continues to bear
until cut off by frost, which would give
for Texas several more weeks for bearing
than Is given in either of the states
hence the yield would be greater
of course.
Texas ought to supply the world with
castor oil. The mills for manufacturing
the product need not be at ell expensive.
Any cotton-seed oil mill can work castor
oil by adding to the machinery COM
paratively inexpensive attachment for
the purpose.
The small farmer in Texas could IN
make much more by growing |
castor beans than he is now making |
growing cotton. The market is always |
more sure, and the castor bean has no |
Kind of insect enemies.
This thing ought TO be studied up by
The progressive people Of Northern and |
Western Texas. In our own mind We |
nave no doubt relative to the castor bean |
of the region. It would |
pay better than almost any !
hing else to grow the beans here and |
hip them to st. Louis, but get our folks |
% know that ours Is the great castor !
bean region and there would not long |