2-iO BRITISH HUSBANDRY, [Ch. XVIII. 



escaped tlieii* previous notice ; for if tliey grow two or more together, they 

 draw up long and weakly, and do not swell properly at the root. This, 

 generally speaking, terminates the operations of horse and liand-hoeing ; 

 as the plants will have now got broad leaves overshadowing the ground 

 for some distance on each side of the drills, and preventing the weeds from 

 growing : but if the weather prove unusually moist and warm, the weeds 

 may get so fast ahead as to render a third hand-hoeing necessary, and 

 neither this, nor the furtlier expense of getting women and children to 

 weed out wild mustard, charlock, ketlock, or any other rubbish which may 

 afterwards spring up, should ever be grudged. 



Lastly, after the last hand-hoeing, and when the turnips have begun to 

 bottle, a double-mould hoard plough is sometimes passed down the rows 

 for the purpose of ridging them and earthing-up the plants. This, liow- 

 ever, is an operation which is not always performed, as the intention is 

 chiefly to lay the turnips dry during the wet months of winter, and the 

 bulbs are found not to swell with much luxuriance if heavily earthed. On 

 land which lies dry enough to be fed off by sheep, the ridging of it up is 

 also exposed to the further objection of occasioning accidents, by causing 

 the animals to be lost by falling upon their backs into the furrows, without 

 being able to recover themselves ; but in spring frosts it shields the 

 turnips, and supplies the place of their natural covering of leaves, 



PRODUCE AND QUALITY. 



In the ordinary course of cultivation, turnips are usually sown previous 

 to barley and clover, but the common sorts are not unfrequently fed off 

 during the autumn, and the land is then generally sown with winter wheat; 

 though sometimes, when the crop lias not been got off in time, spring 

 wheat is substituted. Thus, according to a statement drawn up by Sir 

 John Sinclair and Mr, Curwen, of the practice which they witnessed on 

 the farm of the late Mr. Rennie of Phantassie, the rotation of crops upon 

 two fields of a good gravelly loam, then under Swedes and common turnips, 

 was as follows : — 



No. 1. 



Turnips, Oats, 



Wheat, sown in spring. Beans, 



Clover, Wheat, sown in winter. 



No. 2. 



Turnips, Grass, pastured for one year ; 



Wheat, and partly barley, Oats. 



The first field had five ploughings before the drills were made up : — 



One in winter, One in April ; and 



One in March, Two in May. 



The second field, being in better order, had but four ploughings, only 

 one being given in May ; but, besides these operations, the plough was 

 made use of when the stitches were formed, and again when the dung was 

 covered previous to the seed being sown. The Swedes were dunged at 

 the rate of 12, and the common turnips at 10 tons the English acre; the 

 sowing of the former being in the two last days of May, and the three first 

 of June ; and the latter, between the 10th and 22nd of June, The produce 

 of the Swedes was estimated at 30, and the common sort at 40 tons per 

 acre ; but this amount was partly attributed to the fields having been for- 

 merly limed, at the rate of 300 bushels per Scots acre — though so far back 

 us sixteen years ago *. 



* Fanner's Mag., vol. xvi, p. 430. 



