RUT A BAG A CULTURE 



Transplanting. 



65. This is a third mode of cultivating the RUTA BAGA ; and, 

 in certain cases, far preferable to either of the other two. My 

 large crops at Botley were from roots transplanted. I resorted 

 to this mode in order to insure a crop in spite of the fly : but, I 

 am of opinion, that it is, in all cases, the best mode, provided 

 hands can be obtained in sufficient number, just for a few days, 

 or weeks, as the quantity may be, when the land and the plants 

 are ready. 



66. Much light is thrown on matters of this sort by describing 

 what one has done one s self relating to them. This is practice 

 at once ; or, at least, it comes much nearer to it than any in 

 structions possibly can. 



67. It was an accident that led me to the practice. In the 

 summer of 1812, I had a piece of Ruta Baga in the middle of a 

 field, or, rather, the piece occupied a part of the field, having a 

 crop of carrots on one side, and a crop of Mangel Wurzel on the 

 other side. On the 2oth of July the turnips, or rather, those of 

 them which had escaped the fly, began to grow pretty well. They 

 had been sown in drills ; and I was anxious to fill up the spaces, 

 which had been occasioned by the ravages of the fly. I, there 

 fore, took the supernumerary plants, which I found in the un- 

 attacked places, and filled up the rows by transplantation, which 

 I did also in two other fields. 



68. The turnips, thus transplanted, grew, and, in fact, were 

 pretty good ; but, they were very far inferior to those which had 

 retained their original places. But, it happened, that on one side 

 of the above-mentioned piece of turnips, there was a vacant space 

 of about a yard in breadth. When the ploughman had finished 

 ploughing between the rows of turnips, I made him plough up 

 that spare ground very deep, and upon it I made my gardener go 

 and plant two rows of turnips. These became the largest and 

 finest of the whole piece, though transplanted two days later than 

 those which had been transplanted in the rows throughout the 

 piece. The cause of this remarkable difference, I at once saw, 

 was, that these had been put into newly -ploughed ground ; for, 

 though I had not read much of TULL at the time here referred 

 to, I knew, from the experience of my whole life, that plants as 

 well as seeds ought always to go into ground as recently moved as 

 possible ; because at every moving of the earth, and particularly 

 at every turning of it, a new process of fermentation takes place, 

 fresh exhalations arise, and a supply of the food of plants is thus 

 prepared for the newly arrived guests. Mr. CURWEN, the Member 

 of Parliament, though a poor thing as to public matters, has 



