REPORT OF MR. It. ROBERTSON 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



EXPEKIMEXTS WITH TUKNIPS. 



325 



Ten varieties of turnips were sown in uniform test plots, in duplicate sets, two 

 weeks apart. 



The land was a clay loam on which had been a grain crop the previous year. 1909, 

 with clover in the year 1908. 



The land was ploughed in the fall of 1909, well cultivated in the spring and barn- 

 yard manure spread on the surface at the rate of twenty tons per acre. This was 

 ploughed under and again thoroughly cultivated. Commercial fertilizer (made up 

 in the proportion of superphosphate l-£ lbs.; bone meal 1-J lbs.; nitrate of soda 1 lb.; 

 muriate of potash 1 lb. ;) mixed together and sown at the rate of three hundred lbs. 

 per acre was then spread on the surface and harrowed in with the smoothing harrow. 



The rows were twenty-four inches apart, and the plants thinned out to about one 

 foot apart in the rows. The first set of plots were sown June 6, and the second set 

 on June 20. 



Besides thinning, they were gone over with the hoe once, and cultivated, with a 

 one-horse cultivator, between the rows at least four times. 



The yield was calculated from that obtained from two rows, each sixty-six feet 

 long. 



The crop was pulled October 17, with the following results: — 



Turnips — Test of Varieties. 



CD 



a 



i 



2 

 3 

 4 

 5 

 6 

 7 

 8 

 9 

 10 



Name of Variety. 



Hartley's Bronze 



Halewood's Bronze Top. 



Hall's Westbury 



Magnum Bonum 



Mammoth Clyde 



Good Luck 



Bangholm Selected 



Jumbo 



Perfection Swede 



Carter's Elephant 



Yield per Acre 

 2nd Sowing. 



Bush. Lbs. 



935 

 833 

 646 

 662 

 671 

 756 

 830 

 690 

 701 

 577 



15 

 15 

 45 



i6 



30 

 15 

 15 

 30 



FIELD CROP OF TURNIPS I. 



Eight acres of turnips were grown in lots of one acre each, in one field, the land 

 varying from sandy loam on one side to a very white sandy loam on the other side. 

 The previous crop was buckwheat. The land was ploughed in the fall of 1900, well 

 worked up in the syprin, and barn-yard manure, at the rate of twenty tons per acre, 

 spread on the surface and ploughed under lightly with the gang plough. It was again 

 thoroughly cultivated and the rows run up twenty-four inches apart, as far as possible 

 from twenty-four to forty-eight hours ahead of seeding time. To one half of each acre 

 was added commercial fertilizer (superphosphate, 1£ lbs.; bone meal, l£ lbs.; nitrate of 

 soda, 1 lb.; muriate of potash, 1 lb.), at the rate of three hundred lbs. per acre, and to 

 the other half of each acre, barn-yard manure only. 



Tbe comparison of varieties in this case is not very reliable, as the weather was 

 extremely broken at the time of sowing, and, beginning at the side of the field where 

 the soil was in the better condition, a certain number of days elapsed between the sow- 

 in "• of the first acre and that of the last acre; 



