198 ProgreR.9 of Agricultural Knowledge 



crops do greatly exceed those of the south. Five-and-twenty 

 tons to the acre of Swedish turnips are not an unusual yield in 

 Scotland with ordinary good farming. Here the best crop I have 

 grown with a heavy dressing did not exceed sixteen tons ; one 

 neighbour I believe has reached twenty. But in Lancashire prizes 

 have been given during the last ten years by two district societies. 

 The average weight of the prize- crops of swedes has been thirty 

 tons : such a crop has never been seen in the part of the country 

 where I am writing. To what^ then, is their superiority owing ? 

 Undoubtedly to the ridge system, which has been so admirably de- 

 scribed by Mr. Grey* of Dilston, in his account of Northumberland 

 farming. In the first place^, the dung being in the centre of the 

 ridge immediately under the seed, the young plant is forced up more 

 rapidly, and is sooner safe from the fly, which so often destroys the 

 whole crop at its birth. In the next place, it is a great advantage 

 that the horse-hoe can be used, instead of the tedious hand-hoe. 

 Lastly, there is no doubt that the plant placed immediately over the 

 dung attains a much greater bulk. Hence arise the fine turnip- 

 crops of the north ; and southern farmers are often blamed for not 

 following this example ; but wrongly, as I now see, for having en- 

 deavoured, during many years, to introduce the ridge-system into 

 my own neighbourhood, I must admit that on some soils so far 

 south it does not answer. Nor ought we to be surprised that it 

 does not; for one object doubtless of the ridge-system is, by rais- 

 ing the turnip above the level of the soil, to free it from excessive 

 wet ; and this is a great gain in those northern and western parts 

 of the country, Scotland, and even Lancashire, where the summers 

 are constantly wet. But in many parts of the south we have to 

 fear not wet, but dry springs and summers, at least upon turnip- 

 lands ; and it is not unusual that six weeks together should pass 

 without rain. What is advantageous, therefore, in Scotland, may 

 be hurtful here ; and on this point I cannot do better than state 

 the opinion of one of our members, Mr. Brooks of Hatford, near 

 Faringdon, a practical farmer, which ought to have the more 

 weight, because, having tried the ridge-system for many years, he 

 has retained it upon one part of his farm, and abandoned it upon 

 the other. It is upon adhesive land that he has found it fail, and, 

 in his opinion, from two reasons : — When the ground is thrown 

 over the dung by the plough, the small clods which such land 

 almost always contains fall exactly into the centre ; that is, in the 



or other expensive artificial manures with the seed on the top of the ridge, 

 the whole amounting to from 12/. to 15/. per acre ; in the south a fair coat of 

 dung, at less than half that cost, is the usual practice, while in many cases 

 great crops of swedes are raised at a less charge than 2/. per acre for 

 manure.— Geo. Kimberley. 



* See Mr. Grey on Northumberland Farming, Journal, vol. ii. p. 151. 



