320 HANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



Parsnips are sometimes grown, and they yield largely ; but the 

 labor required in digging them is often an argument against their 

 cultivation, except on very light lands. 



Except for the growth of common turnips, which may gener- 

 ally be raised as a " stolen crop," or on land lying fallow late in 

 the season, the field on which it is proposed to raise roots of 

 whatever kind should, first of all, be most thoroughly under- 

 drained. If it is of a light texture and is underlaid with a soil 

 through which the water of rains will percolate freely, and if it 

 receives no ooze-water from land lying above it, the natural 

 drainage is sufficient ; — but wherever this is not the case ; wher- 

 ever, either early in the spring or late in the fall, the surface of 

 the land, when plowed, appears damp and soggy when other 

 land is dry ; or wherever, during seasons of excessive drought, it 

 cracks into hard clods, it is useless to attempt to raise paying 

 crops of these vegetables unless a thorough system of under- 

 draining with tiles or stones or brush or some other material is 

 first carried into effect. The land being properly drained or 

 naturally sufficiently dry, it should receive the most careful and 

 thorough attention. If the use of the land can be spared, at least 

 one season should be exclusively devoted to the preparation for 

 the growth of the roots. Clover, buckwheat, or some other 

 green crop should be grown to be plowed in in the fall. Probably 

 the best course would be to manure the land quite heavily with 

 stable manure in August or early in September, and then to 

 plow it up deeply and thoroughly, burying, at as great a depth as 

 possible, the green crop and the manure that has been applied to 

 the surface of the land ; and then to run a subsoil plow in the 

 bottom of each furrow as deeply as it can be done with the force 

 at command, thus loosening the earth that has been indurated by 

 the treading of teams and by the sole of the plow during years of 

 previous cultivation. This plowing being done, the surface should 

 be left exposed in the furrow to the action of the frosts of winter 

 and the fall and spring rains. The fall plowing having been done 

 not later than September, the roots and stems of the green crop 

 will be sufficiently rotted not to interfere with subsequent cultiva- 



