FLAX WILL FAIL IF GROWN AFTER TURNIPS. 297 



I have made no deductions for expenses, because the " Old 

 Subscriber" made none in his calculations. Should he, how- 

 ever, be disposed to compare the cost of his root-crop with that 

 of his flax, I shall be able to show that the latter is less than 

 the former. In fact, although the root-crop is proverbially 

 termed "the sheet-anchor of Norfolk farming," it is, neverthe- 

 less, designated " a necessary evil," on account of the profits 

 being less than the expenses. 



Your correspondent observes, " I had what appeared a 

 splendid crop." In this respect, however, he must have been 

 mistaken ; for splendid can only apply where the stalks are 3 or 

 3^ feet high, fine, thick in the ground, and weighing, when 

 deprived of the seed, at the rate of 45 or 50 cwt. per acre ; 

 yielding about 1 st. 4 Ibs. of fibre to every cwt. of stalks, and 

 worth 10s. or 15s. per stone. 



But the half-acre of your correspondent's stalks weighed 

 only 1 5 st., or about two-thirds of a crop, affording another 

 striking instance of the impossibility of growing good flax after 

 turnips. This fact I repeatedly pointed out in my former 

 letters, referring to several cases of failure, and particularly to 

 the experience of Mr. Edmonds, of Stonehouse, Plymouth, 

 formerly an extensive flax-grower in Somersetshire, who 

 writes 



" As an instance of the risk of sowing flax after turnips, I 

 will mention that a friend of mine, some years since, had a 

 fancy to sow a field alternately with turnips and white peas, 

 from each of which he had a good crop ; in the following year 

 he appropriated the same field to flax, but at the harvest his 

 field was in stripes, the land on which the peas grew having 

 produced good flax, whilst the flax which followed the turnips 

 proved good for nothing." 



Had " An Old Correspondent," therefore, properly attended 

 to the subject, he would have avoided sowing linseed after 

 Swedish turnips ; and the still greater error of attempting to 

 divert public attention from my letter by the relation of an 

 incomplete experiment. Like " the fox and the grapes," 

 having failed of success himself, he warned others against the 

 supposition of obtaining any fruit through my representations; 



