^S AGRICULTURAL ESSAYS. 



Six men were directed to take each a row, draw the turnios, 

 strike off the long thin tap root and the soil with it, with a knife 

 made out of old scythes, and throw them into one row, with 

 their bottoms to the ground ; and keeping their tops as free from 

 dirt as possible. When a sufficient quantity were drawn for 

 the day, the parties, six men, went back to their drawn rows, 

 took up the turnips, and struck off the leafy tops into small con- 

 fenient heaps, dropping the bulbs on the ground, which were 

 taken up as.d carried in carts and sleds to cellars near the sheep 

 to ds containmg about 500 bushels each. When these were 

 mi, long square pits were prepared on dry knolls, in the fields, 

 about a foot deep, and the turnips piled up in each, to the num- 

 ber perhaps, of three hundred bushels. Straw was put over 

 them, and subsequently a foot deep of earth, making this cov- 

 ering somewhat thicker to the north-west; this he found by 

 experience to be a sufficient covering, having taken them out 

 in the month of May, perfectly sound. The tops were fed out 

 constantly to horned cattle, as long as they lasted. The hand- 

 somest turnips with the smallest necks and tops, were selected 

 tbr seed, without cutting the roots, and only a part of the top<! 

 and then secured by themselves. These are planted out in dry 

 mellow, and rich ground, on the first opening of the spring, 

 a foot apart, and kept perfectly clean. The seed when ripe, is 

 gathered early in the morning, while the dew is on the pods, 

 and before they split open. • 



This crop, it is said, without exhausting the soil, prepares it 

 as well as any other, for wheat or for grass. Where the soil 

 IS suitable for turnips, and the sheep husbandry is an object of 

 much attention to the farmer, the raising them for feeding to 

 sheep as well as cattle has been found greatly efficacious, and 

 an important improvement in the system of agriculture. The 

 following specific against the fly or little black flea, which are 

 so destructive to the young turnip plant in warm dry weather, 

 should be here noticed in addition to what, has been suc-o-ested 

 on that subject, under the essay on insects. °° 



Steep the seed in train or fish oil and sulphur, from 15 to 20 

 hours before seeding ; the oil may then be strained off, and the 

 seed rolled in plaster or ashes. The oil assists the vegetation 

 of the seed, and impregnates the plant so strongly, that no fly 

 will trouble it, till it is well leafed out. 



Two, perhaps the greatest, difficulties to encounter in the 

 cultivation of the turnip, are the fly and the worm. The for- 

 mer makes its attacks between the time of shooting out of the 

 earth and the expansion of the seed leaf; the latter, from the 

 tap?? of becommj^ a bulb until it is at maturity. T© counteract 



