186 Sketch of the present Stale of [Sept, 



improvements of modern husbandry. No intelligent farmer 

 will deny that the cultivation of turnips was long known and 

 practised in Norfolk before it was adopted in Berwickshire. 

 Some ascribe the first cultivation of turnips in this county to the 

 late Earl of Marchmont; some to Mr. John Hunter, who for 

 some time was steward to the same Nobleman; some to Mr. 

 Pringle, of Lees, near Coldstream ; but it is generally agreed 

 that Mr. William Dawson, formerly tenant in Frogden, Rox- 

 burghshire, who is still 'alive, had the chief merit of introducing 

 the drill turnip husbandry into this neighbourhood, and of 

 bringing it to its present improved state. To allow this, is to 

 ascribe no small honour to Mr. Dawson : for between the first 

 mode of cultivation, the broadcast ; and the present, the drill 

 turnip husbandry, there is a wide display of ingenuity. The 

 broadcast turnip husbandry could never be carried to any great 

 extent in clay soil, because it did not admit the most simple, and 

 cheap, and systematic method of clearing the soil of weeds. But 

 the drill husbandry, while it ensures at least as good a crop, fur- 

 nishes an opportunity of cleaning and pulverizing the soil; of 

 introducing the cheapest and most effectual instrument, the 

 plough ; and of giving to the hoer a dexterity, a regularity, and 

 a dispatch, truly astonishing. Hence it will be no matter of 

 surprise to any to hear that the broadcast turnip husbandry is 

 universally abandoned, and the drill husbandry firmly establish- 

 ed, not only in this, but in all the neighbouring counties. 



Preparation 1, of the field.- — The field intended for tur- 

 nips next season is always ploughed, if possible, after harvest, 

 that it may be finely pulverized by the frost of winter. It 

 receives its second ploughing in the spring, or beginning of 

 summer, after the oats and barley are sown, and the potatoes 

 planted. It is then harrowed, and the weeds are gathered. It 

 undergoes a third, fourth, and fifth ploughing, and as many 

 harrowings, during the months of May and June, and the weeds 

 are repeatedly gathered, as often as it is found requisite. It is 

 also occasionally rolled with a heavy wooden roller, in order to 

 reduce it to powder. Thus it is treated exactly in the same way 

 as fallow. 



Ridges. — The most usual mode of forming the surface of 

 land for turnips, is to lay the ridges flat ; but in a clay soil, like 

 that of the Merse, raised ridges are preferable. 



Drills. — The soil being pulverized, and cleared of weeds, 

 the next thing is to form the whole surface into drills with the 

 plough, at from 26 to 30 inches distance from one another. 

 This distance has been found by experience to be the most con- 

 venient, because it affords sufficient room for the sustenance and 

 growth of the turnip, and allows the plough to pass easily 

 between the drills. When the surface is flattened, the field is 



