BRA 



OR BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



BRA 



169 



attack them until they are stinted in their growth. Good 

 tillage therefore, and having the land in heart, is of more 

 consequence to prevent the ravages of the fly, than all the 

 nostrums that have been published. The provident farmer 

 will, as tar as he can, watch for favourable opportunities to sow 

 his seed ; and he had better defer sowing, than do it when 

 the weather is hot and dry. He will have his land in 

 proper order ; he will be at the pains of procuring good 

 seed, new, if he can get it ; and he will sow a sufficient 

 quantity ; but, above all, he will lay in a proper quantity of 

 manure", to promote the growth of the young plants, and 

 to push them forward as fast as possible. It is this purpose 

 which is answered by dressings of ashes, soot, composts of 

 lime and dung, &c. in sufficient quantities ; either sown 

 with the seed, or rather immediately before, well harrowed 

 in, and completely incorporated with the soil. There is 

 *ome doubt, however, respecting the expediency of dunging 

 largely for Turnips. One says, the only available precaution 

 against the fly, consists in ploughing the land till it is very 

 fine, and filling it with muck ; whilst others are of opinion 

 that the flies are increased by the dung, which certainly is 

 K nest for a great variety of insects. Folding may perhaps 

 be better than the dunging, the treading of the sheep both 

 destroying the insects, and rendering light land more firm. 

 In seasons wherein apprehensions of the fly are entertained, 

 it is recommended to plough for sowing, as soon as it is 

 light in the morning, only so much land as can be sown and 

 harrowed by six o'clock; and about six in the evening again 

 to plough as much as can be sown and harrowed before 

 dark. The seed being thus sown while there is some 

 moisture in the newly-ploughed ground, will vegetate sooner, 

 and come up more regularly, than it would do if the ground 

 were dry. If the season should prove dry, the ground 

 should be well looked over ; and when the young plants 

 begin to be attacked by the fly, the land should be strewed 

 all over with vegetable ashes, and the night following it 

 should be rolled. If rain come on in a day or two after, 

 the Turnips will soon be out of danger, by the rain washing 

 the salts of the ashes to their roots ; if not, in a week's time 

 a fresh dressing of ashes, with rolling, should again be 

 applied. Where wood or peat ashes are not to be had in 

 plenty, the farmer ought to raise a quantity for the purpose, 

 from burning quick and other weeds, or turf, litter, furze, 

 heath, fern, &c. Or if he has only a small quantity of ashes, 

 he may have recourse to a compost of these with soaper's 

 ashes, coal-ashes, quick lime, and soot, mixed well by burning 

 them two or three times, and passing them through a sieve ; 

 it is scarcely necessary to add, that the ashes should be 

 kept in a dry place. When large patches are irrecoverably 

 goive, it is best to plough immediately, and sow again, liar- 

 rowing in the seed. The early stone Turnip is recommended 

 for this purpose, because it comes to maturity sooner th.-in 

 the common sort, and may be sown twenty days after the 

 first sowing. The bug jiy, or aphis, is by no means so 

 tremendous an enemy as the beetle : being extremely soft 

 ami tender, and therefore easily crushed, a light roller, 

 especially if it were muffled in some soft elastic covering, 

 so as to p>ress in between the clods, might perhaps be effec- 

 tual in destroying these insects without injuring the plants. 

 Another danger of the crops being destroyed is from the 

 caterpillars, which very often attack them when they are 

 grown so large as to have six or eight leaves on a plant : the 

 surest method of destroying these insects, is to turn a large 

 parcel of poultry into tbe field, which should be kept 

 hungry, and turned in early in the morning ; tiaese fowls 

 v ill soon devour the insects, ami clear the Turnips. Tie 

 VOL. i. 16. 



Turnips sown in drills are not so much exposed to this evil, 

 for as the ground between the rows will be kept stirred, the 

 plants will be kept growing, and will not be in danger of 

 suffering from these insects ; for the parent insects never 

 deposit their eggs upon any plants which are in health, but 

 as soon as they become stinty, they are immediately covered 

 with their eggs ; so that it is the disease which occasions the 

 vermin, and not the vermin the disease, as is commonly 

 imagined ; therefore as the plants will always be in greater 

 health when the ground is well stirred about them, there 

 will be less danger of their suffering from these enemies 

 when they are cultivated by the horse-hoe, than by the 

 common way. These caterpillars are provincially called 

 black cankers; they are not so universal as the fly or Turnip- 

 beetle, but their ravages, though partial, are in some 

 seasons very great, especially near the sea coast. Many 

 remedies have been proposed against this destructive insect : 

 as, drawing a rope over the ridges, two persons holding the 

 ends ; this will brush the caterpillars off, and perhaps may 

 save a few acres, where it can be frequently repeated, and 

 the insects are not very numerous. It is an improvement 

 upon this expedient to fasten twigs upon the rope, for 

 which purpose elder twigs have been preferred, but certainly 

 without sufficient reason. Stiff crooked boughs will injure 

 and tear the plants. Others draw a brush made of furze 

 over the Turnips : the branches are fixed to a long pole or 

 axle-tree, with a wheel at each end, of such a height that 

 the furze will brush the plants without pulling them up by 

 the roots. This mischief might be prevented, if the inha- 

 bitants of the sea-coast would burn the flies on their arrival, 

 when they are spent with their flight, and frequently may 

 be taken up by shovels-full. Another enemy to Turnips, and 

 to the garden in general, as well as to Flax, Wheat, &c. 

 is the naked snail, or slug. This, however, is a trifling evil 

 in comparison with the others. Slugs abound most in wet 

 seasons, when the fly is least prevalent, and chiefly on fresh 

 ground and bad fallows. The only remedy prescribed, ig 

 night-rolling, when the dew is upon the ground. The wire 

 or red worm, is also complained of as injurious toTurnipe,as 

 well as to the gardens in general, particularly by those who 

 pursue the drill culture. The grub is perhaps in itself not 

 fatal, did not the rooks, in order to come at it, pull up 

 not only the plants which are attacked, but those also which 

 are free from it, and thus clear them as they go. There is a 

 disease to which Turnips are subject, called the ajii/ury or 

 hanberry. It is a large excrescence, which forms itself below 

 the bulb or apple, grows to the size of both the hands, ami 

 when brought to maturity becomes putrid, and smells very 

 offensively : it is irregular in its form, with excrescences' 

 like races of ginger, hanging to it. The tops of those 

 Turnips which are much affected, turn yellow, and flag with 

 the heat of the sun. It is a common notion that this disease 

 is caused by the soil's being tired of Turnips ; tiiat is, by their 

 being sown too often on the same land. Now this is errone- 

 ous, for the anbury appears on land, which has never borne 

 Turnips before. It is more probable, that it is caused by 

 some grub or iasect, that diverts the course of the sap by 

 wounding the vessels of the tap-root. In Norfolk, marl 

 is esteemed a certain preventive of the anbury. The last 

 enemy to be mentioned, is severe frost, which usually destroys 

 the sown Turnips, and much injuries the late ones. The only 

 method of counteracting this evil, is to preserve or store up 

 a certain quantity of Turnips, in case of frost or a deep snow. 

 This may be done by drawing them in dry weather, wten 

 they have attained their full growth ; topping and tailing 

 them ; and carting the roots into an adjoining new-made dry 

 3C 



