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VIII. On preserving Turnips as Food for Cattle hi JVlnteT. 

 By Air. James Dean, of Exeter*. 



\\T ^'''' 



Vt hen surveying an estate in the South-Hams of Devon, 



in February last, my attention was attracted by the singular 

 appearance of a crop of turnips in an orchard; so thick as 

 to touch each other, and closely surround the stems of the 

 apple trees. I inquired of the farmer the reason of so un- 

 usual i crop, and I received from him some curious inform- 

 ation. It was the constant practice, he said, in his neigh- 

 bourhood, tor farmers, af'er they had broken up ley ground, 

 first to take a crop of turnips ; and in the autumn, or rather 

 winter, to sow wheat in the same ground. Should winter 

 fodder be scarce, they then preserved the turnip crop for 

 stock, and consequently could not put in wheat before Ja- 

 nuary ; and even then with no probability of having more 

 than two-thirds of an usual crop, because of the late sowing. 

 This was an evil of great magnitude, and led him, he added, 

 to make trial of a mode peculiarly successful, enabling him 

 to sow his seed in the proper season, and to save the most 

 valuable of his turnip crop during the winter. 



He got, he said, his turnip seed into the ground early in 

 Jtine ; and in October, by which time the turnips would 

 have grown to a large sizcj he had the largest of them drawn 

 without injuring the" lea'ves, and then placed close to each 

 other on the grass in the orchard, in the same position in 

 which they grew. Their leaves preserved them from ex- 

 ternal injury ; and their tap roots put out, in a short time, 

 other fibrous roots into the grass, which, in orchards, is 

 generally long in the autumn ; and thus the turnips were 

 preserved good for use. 



I inquired whether the turnips acquired any additional size 

 after their removal into the orchard, and whether, from the 

 warmth occasioned by tiie turnips to the groimd, any ad- 

 vanta tous cfTcet was apparent in the apj)le trees. On these 

 »]ue&tions he was not able to speak positively, though he 



• from TrayisactioJis of Svcicttj ofArt'<, Sec. vol. xxiv. 



thought 



