Tiptrec Hall Farm 



27 



meat, and other consumables, and as the land 

 of England is neither half farmed nor half 

 capitalled, by landowner or by tenant, there 

 must and will be great changes and improve- 

 ments. Observation and experience have 

 taught me, especially in this neighbourhood, 

 that the grand remedy for this uncomfortable 



state of things is frequent change of owner- 

 ship, by which means new sentiments and 

 new and additional capital will, as a neces- 

 sary result, flow mto agricultural improve- 

 ment. Therefore, I am most decidedly op- 

 posed to fixity of tenure by the laws of entail 

 and primogeniture. 



FINGER-AND-TOE IN TURNIP S.'^ 



THE cultivation and value of the turnip 

 crop is increasing in this country* 

 and the disease of finger-and-toe is rapidly ex- 

 tending and destroying the bulbs to such an 

 extent on many farmc, that they are hardly 

 worth raising, and unless checked it will be 

 on every farm in the country. Any infor- 

 mation on the cause, prevention, or cure of 

 this disease must therefore be of great import- 

 ance both to landlords and tenants. It is re- 

 marked that so little attention is given to 

 this subject by any agricultural society in 

 Scotland, and certainly no premium has been 

 offered even to the extent of half-a-crown's 

 worth of a bronze medal for any treatise on 

 the subject. 



Many writers maintain that an insect is the 

 cause, like wireworm in wheat, and segging in 

 oats. I have frequently searched, with the 

 microscope, the diseased plants in their earli- 

 est stages, but have failed to detect either an 

 insect or such effects as an insect would pro- 

 duce. No doubt, in the later stages, when 

 the bulb is rotten, many insects will be found, 

 as usual, where decayed animal or vegetable 

 matter exists. 



It does not appear to be a fungus or para- 

 site — as smut or rust in wheat, blackball in 

 oats or barley, or a plant of the nature of 

 hair-mould, called mildew, that destroys the 

 leaves of turnips, or a similar plant that pro- 

 duces the potato and bean disease, and the 

 dry rot in potato tubers, or wood. 



* By Mr Alexander Murray, Nethermill, Cruden, 

 Aberdeenshire. 



My opinion is, from the manner it acts in. 

 the turnip plant, that it is of the nature of a 

 poison, either of animal or vegetable origin. 

 I find this poison may be contained either in 

 the soil, manure, turnip plants, or seed. In 

 confirmation of this theory, I have abundance 

 of facts, and will now shev/, as briefly as 

 possible, that it may be conveyed to any field 

 by using diseased soil, manure, bulbs, or 

 seed. I will then give such conclusions or 

 suggestions for prevention or remedy as 

 direct experiment on many farms entitles me 

 to do. 



In evidence that the poison may be in 

 the soil, and from it communicated to the 

 plant, irrespective of the manure or seed, I 

 made a large series of experiments in deep, 

 old, dry infield, formed from puddingstone 

 rock, on the farm of Findon, in the parish of 

 Gamrie, with various manures, applied 

 separately, and also mixed, as farm-yard 

 manure, pardy formed from diseased turnips, 

 bone dust, bones, and sulphuric acid, guano, 

 &c. The field was carefully selected, equal 

 in depth, exposure, &c., and I had two plots 

 of ^th of an acre for each experiment. The 

 result was that every turnip in the field was 

 diseased upon the land that had no manure 

 as well as what was manured. So great was 

 the destruction of the crop, that 20 tons of 

 farm-yard manure only added 3 tons of tur- 

 nips, and 6 cwt. of finest Peruvian guano 6 

 tons more than what was sown without any 

 manure. 



That it is conveyed to the land by manure 

 formed by cattle that had diseased turnips 



