i88i.] NOTES FROM THE PAPERS. 3G7 



" Oq the 29th of Xovember last," he says, " we carried out the following ex- 

 periments : First of all 600 Turnips were left in the land as they grew, with- 

 out any protection. I need not say that when these were taken up on the 

 26th of March this spring they were all rotten. Secondly, a row of 600 Tur- 

 nips was furrow^ed up with the plough in the usual Aberdeenshire fashion, and 

 when taken up about S3 per cent of these were rotten, or about five rotten to 

 one whole Turnip. Thirdly, we tried what I might call the Forfarshire system, 

 by opening a furrow with a single-boarded plough ; two drills of Turnips pulled, 

 without anything cut from them, were laid against the perpendicular side of 

 the furrow and the soil turned back over them with the plough. Of these, 

 about 28 per cent were destroyed or rotten, but of the good Turnips many were 

 wet and dirty. Fourthly, we opened a deep furrow with a double-boarded 

 plough ; the Turnips were shorn of leaves with the scythe, harrowed oiit, and 

 eight drills put into the furrow. They were partly covered by one round of 

 the single-boarded plough, and the remaining uncovered portion covered with 

 earth by spade. Out of these 600 Turnips about 16 per cent were destroyed, 

 but they did not come up quite so clean as they should have done, or as those 

 in the next experiments we tried, and which I may call the English way, 

 which was putting the Turnips into pits. I had three different pits or heaps, 

 about 6 feet square. Into No. 1, 600 Turnips, as they were pulled, without 

 anything cut off, were thrown. This is the ordinary way I have seen it done 

 in Huntingdonshire since I was a boy. In the next, the 600 Turnips had the 

 leaves cut off ; and in the third pit, they had the leaves and the roots cut otY. 

 The pits were 3 to 4 feet high, and each contained about 1 h cartload of Tur- 

 nips, and were covered with 4 inches of earth. In No. 1. there were 552 

 healthy Turnips out of the 600, and 48 destroyed, or 8 per cent ; in No. 2 

 there were 550, and 50 destroyed, or 8 per cent ; and in No. 3 there were 570, 

 and 35 destroyed, or 6 per cent ; and the great advantage was that the bulbs 

 were healthy, clean, and dry." 



' Land and Water ' gives an interesting account of the manufacture 

 of anew manure named "Azotine," which is said to equal the best 

 guano, and likely to supersede it to some extent. 



*'Man is, by the laws of society, obliged to clothe himself in garments made 

 from vegetable or animal fibre, and in due time these garments decay and are 

 consigned to the rag-bag. In this age of utility nothing is permitted to be 

 wasted, hence these rags are divided into three categories. First, they are 

 washed and purified, then after beins unravelled they are made uf) into infe- 

 rior cloth, and sold at a cheap rate. The remainder is carefully examined and 

 all animal matter removed ; it is then packed in bales and despatched to the 

 papermakers, who give a good price for it. The rags of the third class are, or 

 rather have been, considered almost valueless, as they cannot be used for cloth 

 or paper. Hitherto they have been utilised for manure in a rough manner, by 

 tearing them into pieces and burying them at a trifling depth below the earth, 

 scattering them over the surface ; but as this process is tedious, and the sub- 

 stance takes a long time to decompose and produce any effect upon vegetation, 

 it scarcely repays the manual labour, so that cultivators do not care to employ 

 it. The plan was then tried of destroying the wool with caustic alkali, and 

 throwing the blackened mass into the river, or of attacking the cotton with a 

 strong acid, and reducing it to powder, whilst the wool was made up again. 

 Thus the utilisation of one fibre occasioned the destruction of the other. This 



