90 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



THE TURNIP PLANT. 



BY CUTHBERT W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.R.S. 



The growth of the turnip plaat during the 

 season of 1857-58 has presented to us facts of 

 considerable interest. The periods of long con- 

 tinued drought, followed, during that brilliant 

 summer, by copious rainfalls and a high tempera- 

 ture, have caused the turnips, in most districts, to 

 grow in a very unusual manuer. The bulbs, in 

 the instances to which I refer, have grown in length 

 to a very irregular extent ; but this has not been 

 attended with a corresponding enlargement of the 

 diameter of the bulb. They have commonly ex- 

 tended above the surface of the soil about eighteen 

 inches : these more resemble, in their above-ground 

 shape, the ordinary mangold-wurzel or carrot than 

 the turnip plant. Unfortunately, this morbid 

 growth has been attended with a very extensive 

 diminution of the nutritive properties of the bulb ; 

 the stock eat it with reluctance; it seems to possess 

 little or no fattening properties. 



Various reasons have been produced to account 

 for the phenomenon. The blame has been some- 

 times laid upon the seed employed ; in other cases, 

 the loss experienced has been attributed to the use, 

 for the turnip crop, of certain well-known artificial 

 manures. To neither of these causes, I believe, can 

 be truly assigned the malformation. I have found, 

 upon extended inquiry, that the elongated turnips 

 have been produced to an equal extent by the 

 plants produced from seed procured of different 

 merchants, from different counties, and from seed 

 ripened on the farm on which it was sown. The 

 seed, then, we may fairly conclude, has had little or 

 no influence in the matter. Then, as regards the 

 use of artificial manures, I find that these long- 

 rooted turnips have been prO(Juced to an equally 

 injurious extent on land dressed with farmyard 

 compost only, with farmyard dung and superphos- 

 phate of Hme, with Peruvian guano and superphos- 

 phate of lime, used alone or employed together on 

 the turnip soils of Norfolk and Bedford, Surrey 

 and Dorset, and on lands which have>nd have not 

 been marled or chalked. We have not, therefore, 

 any reason to believe that the use of apy particular 

 dressing has had any influence whatever in the 

 case. 



It is ever our fate, indeed, when we are studying 

 the diseases or the growth of plants, to meet with — 

 to be haunted with— suspicions and baseless con- 

 clusions, not much more wise than those which 

 bewitched our forefathers. Erer and anon we hear 

 grave suspicions hazarded that the mortality of our 

 sheep is increased when fed on roots grown with 

 artificial manures j the use of sprats in this way 



has conjured up opinions of this kind. Peruvian 

 guano and superphosphate of lime have been some- 

 times held to render the turnip less wholesome for 

 the flock. With every effort which I have made to 

 procure reliable evidence on this subject, I have 

 always found that these kind of suspicions could 

 not be rendered more conclusive; they rested, in 

 fact, on the most vague of surmises. The com- 

 parative analyses of turnips grown with a variety of 

 manures show that the turnips grown with arti- 

 ficial dressings do not vary materially in com- 

 position from the turnips grown with only farm- 

 yard dung : the same chemical matters are found 

 in each. Way, Voelcker, Nesbit, and others, all 

 concur in this conclusion. Dr. Anderson's trials 

 were perhaps the most valuable, because the tur- 

 nips he examined were grown on three kinds of 

 soil, and had been dressed with seven different 

 manures. We can at this time recur to these 

 valuable researches with considerable advantage. 

 For the sake of a more ready comparison, I will 

 give the results obtained by the Professor in the 

 same tabular form ■ to which I have elsewhere 

 reduced them. 



In the following table, then, column I. gives 

 the soil and crop ; II., the water in 10,000 parts ; 

 III., the nitrogen in the fibre ; IV., the nitrogen in 

 the juice; V., the phosphates. The turnips were 

 grown on the property of Lord Kinnaird, in Perth- 

 shire. The clay soil is the heavy alluvial clay of 

 the Carse of Gowrie, which is a wheat soil of the 

 best description. The hill land is a light loamy 

 soil, of an entirely diff'erent character from the 

 Carse clay, and lets at a much inferior rent. The 

 black land forms the boundary between the two 

 former, and partakes of the character of both, those 

 of the clay, however, preponderating : — 



I. 



Swedes in 1849. 



Clay land. . . . 



Black land.. . 



Hill land .... 

 Swedes in 1850. 



Clay land .... 



Black land. . . 



Hill land .... 

 Aberd'n yellows, 1849 



Clay land .... 



Black land.. . 



Hill land .... 

 Aberd'n yellows, 1850 



Clay land .... 



Black land . . . 



Hill Land.... 



V. 



16.0 

 17.6 

 15.9 



9.6 

 9.0 

 9.8 



16.2 

 16.7 

 13.3 



6.8 

 12.1 

 12.0 



