Gloucester County Democrat., 1899-07-06
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AGRRM sF0gAD
aAb GARDEN
RAPE CULTURE.
Progressive Farmers Are Turning
1T to Great Account.

Progressive Farmers Are Turning
1T to Great Account.
The progress in rape culture in this
country is one of the marvels of latter
day husbandry. Five years ago the
plant was little known and less under
stood. Last year millions of acres were
devoted to its culture, and other mil
lions of ceres will be added to its broad
green doelain the present year All
progressive English and Canadian
shepherds cultivate it, and the perfec-
tion of their fiocks attests its great val
ne. The English and Canadian shepherds
cultivate it mainly for sheep. but pre-
gressive American farmers are turning
it to broader uses, having found it
quite as profitable a grazing and soiling
plant for their cattle and swine.
To say that rape is revolutionizing the
sheep industry in this country is put
ting the case none too strong. 1t adds
immensely TO the popular tendency to-
ward intensive sheep farming by yield
ing vastly greater amount of succulent
and healthful green food to the acre
than any other crop, thereby increasing
in like ratio the sheep carrying ca
pacity of the farm. 1t tides the sheep
farmer over the dry hot season when
the grasses are dead and the fields are
brown with a wealth of green. palata-
BILE and nourishing food such as no 9TH
er product of the farm can or does fur
nish.
1t is alike valuable for silo, for soil
ing the flock in the cool shadows of
grove or barn in the scorching heat of
the midsummer day, or for grazing the
sheep in the cooler hours of morning
and evening Nothing equals it for
ewes and lambs during the nursing pc
riod, and for weaning lambs it is in
comparable, carrying them from mother
milk to self sustaining lambhood with
scarcely a sign of shrinkage. It is with
out a rival in all the list of succulent
summer and autumn feeds for starting
mutton, sheep and lambs on the flesh
making road to full grain feeding. A
writer in The Country Gentleman, who
expresses the foregoing opinion of the
value of rape, gives also some practical
directions, as follows, about its culture:
Generically rape belongs to the same
order as cabbage, kale, turnips, etc,
and is grazing and soiling plant. not
susceptible of conversion into hay. It
may be sown broadcast or planted in
drills from 26 to 80 inches apart if de-
sired for cultivation with the pIow or
cultiyator From four to FIVE pounds of
seed may be used for seeding broadcast
and from two to three pounds per acre
if planted in drills.
For quickness and immensity of
growth it is without a rival, growing
on good rich soils to height of 12 to
Is inches in six or eight weeks, and in
its full growth 3 to feet high. produc-
ing 20 to 80 tons of feed to the acre
Sheep. cattle or swine may be turned
into the field of rape when it has reach
ed height of 10, 12 or 5 inches. the
owner using caution to limit sheep or
cattle to an hour or less of grazing for
the first four or five days to prevent the
possibility of bIoating until they are
accustomed to the feed.
For early summer grazing rape
should be sewn about oat seeding time
in April or May. according TO latitude,
and for late summer and fall feeding it
may be sown in June July and early
August It may be sown alone for a
full early crop or sown with oats. in
which case it makes slow growth until
the oats are harvested, when it comes
forward with great rapidity. 1t is often
sown on oat, wheat or barley stubble
without plowing, and narrowed in with
light tooth harrow, in this way max
ing an abundance of fall feed. As a
supplemental crop, however, it is more
extensively sown in corn by scattering
the seed ahead of the cultivator at time
of last cultivation The corn shades
and protects the young plant during it's
early growth, and within six or eight
weeks lambs may be turned in for
weaving.
Rape in the corufeld is a paradise for
lambs before corn harvest and makes a
splendid fall feed for sheep, cattle or
swine when the corn is harvested. In
seeding the cornfeld with rape it is
good plan to use about two pounds of
rape seed mixed with one-h half pound
of common fiat turnip seed for each
acre. The same mixture may be profit
ably used in seeding with oats or on
stubble land.
SDeefnI Tar.,.