360 EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS — TUENIP CROP 1882. 



roots in his section. These were deposited at the outside drill, 

 and the next plot was entered and sampled in the same manner. 

 The whole breadth of the station was thus traversed four times, 

 and forty average turnips were selected from each half-plot. 

 These were collected and put into two bags, twenty in each bag, 

 carefully labelled, and sent to the laboratory. By this means 

 each half-plot was sampled in duplicate, and the duplicates were 

 kept distinct until the dry matter was estimated. Nearly 3000 

 turnips from each station were required to form the samples for 

 the estimation of the dry matter, and the manipulation of these 

 was a very laborious work. The following was the method 

 employed. Each batch of twenty was washed and brushed to 

 remove any adhering earthy matter, and thereafter dried with 

 towels and weighed. Each turnip was then brought under the 

 stroke of a large knife worked as a lever, and cut in two from 

 above downwards ; one half was kept, and the other thrown away. 

 Another stroke of the knife divided the half turnip in two in a 

 similar direction, and one half was thrown away ; of the remain- 

 ing quarter a slice was taken in the same direction, representing 

 from a half to a third of its bulk. So that of each turnip there 

 was selected for analysis a segment from above downwards, and 

 from the core to the skin which represented from one-eighth to 

 one-twelfth of the bulk of the bulb. 



These segments were each laid on its side, and made to pass 

 under the lever-knife when in rapid motion, and furnished with 

 a guard near the hilt to prevent the blade from descending nearer 

 than about about an eighth of an inch from the table. Each 

 segment was thus split into twenty or more laminae attached to 

 each other like the teeth of a comb. Each batch of laminated 

 segments was immediately weighed, and put into a large drying 

 chamber on a tray. After a few days in the drying chamber 

 these were sufficiently dry to be put into paper bags, and set 

 aside to make room for others. The preparing and securing 

 of the partially dried samples of each station occupied about a 

 month. Thereafter the bagged samples were put again into 

 the drying chamber and kept at a temperature of about 80° C. 

 until they were nearly dry, and were so hard as to permit 

 of their being ground to a fine powder. Each sample was 

 then weighed, and thereupon ground in a coffee-mill, and 

 secured in a bottle with an air-tight stopper. 



The small amount of residual moisture was thereafter 

 estimated, and as soon as this stage was reached the duplicate 

 samples of each half-plot were mixed together, and from the 

 combined powder the various constituents of the crops on each 

 half-plot were determined. 



It might seem from this description that the sampling and 

 drying of the samples of a turnip crop was a comparatively easy 



