CROPS. 255 



The turnip crop is to be considered, as I have already re 

 marked, as the foundation of the improved husbandry of Eng 

 land, in the means which it affords of supporting an increased 

 stock, in the abundance of enriching manure which it thus 

 supplies, and in the cleanness of cultivation to which it leads 

 as a preparation for other crops. They are usually fed off in 

 the field ; the white turnips, often, as they are grown, in the 

 ground, which I cannot help thinking a slovenly mode of hus 

 bandry. But in most cases, they are pulled and topped, and 

 tailed, and cut by a machine, and fed to the sheep in troughs 

 on the field where they grew ; the fold, which is composed of 

 movable fences, being changed from one part of the field to 

 the other, until the whole is gone over, and the crop consumed. 

 They are sometimes spread upon grass lands, both for cattle 

 and sheep, but are most commonly given to cattle in stalls. 

 Many of the best farmers pull all their turnips, and feed them 

 to their cattle and sheep in their straw yards; which enables 

 them to convert their straw into enriching manure. The Scotch 

 tanners in the Lothians, and the farmers in Northumberland 

 and the northern counties, who grow immense quantities of 

 turnips, sell them to feeders of sheep and stock, as they stand 

 in the field, upon the condition that they are to be consumed 

 where they grow. The sheep and cattle are brought, in such 

 cases, from the Highlands in the north, and are here prepared for 

 market. The climate of England enables the farmers to leave 

 their turnips, for the most part, in safety, in the ground, during 

 the winter, and to gather them as there may be occasion. The 

 Swedes, if not pulled, and if left to thaw in the ground, suffer 

 little from frost. Various modes are adopted for protecting 

 them, in parts of the country where it is deemed necessary or 

 expedient ; and they must, of course, be removed, where a grain 

 crop is to be sown in the autumn or early winter. I need not 

 describe these modes, as few of them would be applicable to 

 my own country. Swede turnips may, as I know by re 

 peated experience, be kept well during our coldest winters, by 

 being laid upon the ground, where the bottom is dry, and piled 

 up in a long ridge, like the pitched roof of a house, being first 

 covered lightly with straw, and then with dirt, holes being left 

 in different places, as ventilators for the heat to escape j and 

 then, as the cold increases, the covering of straw and dirt is 



