122 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. [PART I. 



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 

 instructions possibly can. 



67. It was an accident that led me to the 

 practice. In the summer of 1812, 1 had a piece 

 of Ruta Saga 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 

 20th 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, therefore, 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 



