SWEDISH TURNIPS 



229. My own crop of Swedish Turnips this year is far inferior 

 to that of last in every respect. The season has been singularly 

 unfavourable to all green and root crops. The grass has been 

 barer than it was, I believe, ever known to be ; and, of course, 

 other vegetables have experienced a similar fate. Yet, I have 

 some very good turnips ; and, even with such a season, they are 

 worth more than three times what a crop of Corn on the same 

 land would have been. I am now (25th Nov.) giving the greens 

 to my cow and hogs. A cow and forty stout hogs eat the greens 

 of about twenty or thirty rods of turnips in a day. My five acres 

 of greens will last about 25 days. I give no corn or grain of any 

 sort to these hogs, and my English hogs are quite fat enough for 

 fresh pork. I have about 25 more pigs to join these forty in a 

 month s time : about 40 more will join those before April. My 

 cabbages on an acre and a half of ground will carry me well on 

 till February (unless I send my Savoys to New York), and, when 

 the cabbages are done, I have my Swedish Turnips for March, 

 April, May and June, with a great many to sell if I choose. I 

 have, besides, a dozen ewes to keep on the same food, with a few 

 wethers and lambs, for my house. In June Early Cabbages 

 come in : and then the hogs feed on them. Thus the year is 

 brought round. 



230. But, what pleases me most, as to the Swedish Turnips, 

 is, that several of my neighbours have tried the culture, and have 

 far surpassed me in it this year. Their land is better than mine, 

 and they have had no Borough- villians and Bank-villians to fight 

 against. Since my Turnips were sown, I have written great part 

 of a Grammar and have sent twenty Registers to England, besides 

 writing letters amounting to a reasonable volume in bulk ; the 

 whole of which has made an average of nine pages of common print 

 a day, Sundays included. And, besides this, I have been twelve 

 days from home, on business, and about five on visits. Now, 

 whatever may have been the quality of the writings ; whether they 

 demanded mind or not, is no matter : they demanded time for the 

 fingers to move in, and yet, I have not written a hundred pages by 

 candle-light. A man knows not what he can do till he tries. 

 But, then, mind, I have always been up with the cocks and hens ; 

 and I have drunk nothing but milk and water. It is a saying, that 

 &quot; wine inspires wit &quot; : and that &quot; in wine there is truth.&quot; These 

 sayings are the apologies of drinkers. Every thing that produces 

 intoxication, though in but the slightest degree, is injurious to 

 the mind : whether it be such to the body or not, is a matter of far 

 less consequence. My Letter to Mr. TIERNEY, on the state of the 

 Paper-Money, has, I find, produced a great and general impression 

 in England. The subject was of great importance, and the 

 treating it involved much of that sort of reasoning which is the 

 most difficult of execution. That Letter, consisting of thirty- 

 tzvo full pages of print, I wrote in one day, and that, too, on the 

 i ith of July, the hottest day in the year. But, I never could have 



