340 EEPOKT ON THE COMPARATIVE PRODUCTIVENESS OF TURNIPS. 



ties, that the object to be aimed at primarily is to assist the tree 

 in attaining the shape for which it was intended by nature, and 

 not to contort it into any fanciful or artificial form. 



EEPOET ON THE COMPAEATIVE PEODUCTIVENESS OF 



TUENIPS. 



By John Milne, Mains of Laithers, Turriff. 



[Premium — Medium Gold Medal.] 



Whether we take its extent, or its value in the production of 

 beef and mutton, the turnip crop is the most important of all 

 green crops to the British farmer. Indeed, a large extent of 

 light soil in the northern counties of Scotland could scarcely be 

 cultivated profitably were it not for the valuable turnip crops 

 which such soils generally produce. It is of the utmost im- 

 portance to the stock-farmer to produce a large, sound, and 

 nutritious crop of turnips. Hitherto, the attention of experi- 

 menters has been directed chiefly to the manures which assist in 

 the production of large crops. Comparatively little attention has 

 been directed to the relative weight and quality of the different 

 varieties, though considerable differences are generally believed 

 to exist. If sown for a few successive years on poor unmanured 

 soil, the turnip rapidly degenerates from a large fleshy bulb to a 

 small elongated fibrous root. In such a case the bulb shrinks 

 into the taproot, and it requires years of careful cultivation to 

 restore it to its former value ; hence it is of importance to use 

 seed grown for a series of years from full-sized transplanted bulbs ; 

 and the difference in productiveness between one variety and 

 another, or between two samples of the same variety, may be 

 entirely due to the method in which the seed has been raised. 

 The method of growing seed also influences, in some cases at least, 

 the soundness of the crop. We have repeatedly seen the produce 

 of one sample of seed badly affected with anbury or " finger-and- 

 toe ; " while another sample of the same variety, sown alongside, 

 remained almost sound. How such a difference should occur 

 is very mysterious, and is deserving of careful investigation. 



The following experiments on the comparative productiveness 

 of different varieties of turnips were made in the years 1864, 

 1865, and 1866, on a farm in Aberdeenshire, 12 miles inland, 

 and about 250 feet above sea-level. The soil is light turnip soil, 

 incumbent on clay slate. The rotation is five-course. The manures 

 applied in each case were 15 tons of farm-yard dung, 1 cwt. of 

 Peruvian guano, 2 cwt. of bone dust, and 2 cwt. of superphosphate. 

 The plots consisted of 4 drills of each variety. All were topped 

 and tailed, and weighed in the field on a sack-weighing machine. 



