170 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



ploughing, green barn-yard manure may be spread upon the 

 sward before ploughing, and turned under. In this case the 

 fermentation of the manure will take place with great rapidity 

 during the hot summer months — the sod which lies above it not 

 being firm and close enough to exclude the air, which is indis- 

 pensable to the process of decomposition. As the season 

 advances the rootlets will find, as they penetrate the light, warm 

 sod, an abundance of nourishment beneath. On heavier lands, 

 however, a different process seems to be necessary. These 

 should be ploughed at the time recommended, to such a 

 depth as to give a good supply of loose soil for the seed-bed. 

 The manure applied to them should be well decomposed — and 

 if composted with old muck, it will be an advantage. It is 

 seldom that cow manure alone attains a degree of warmth suf- 

 ficient for this crop. It is well, therefore, to combine it with a 

 liberal supply of well-rotted horse manure. A compost of one- 

 third muck, one-third cow manure, and one-third horse manure, 

 well mixed, and thoroughly decomposed, is as good an applica- 

 tion for turnips as can be found. About six cords of this com- 

 post, spread upon the acre, and well harrowed in, will make a 

 good bed for the crop. The addition of half a ton of bone 

 manure to the acre, to the compost heap before it is applied, 

 will vastly improve the mixture. 



When the land has been prepared and the manure applied, 

 as we have suggested, it should be lightly furrowed with a com- 

 mon wooden marker, containing three or four teeth about four 

 inches long, and from twenty to twenty-four inches distant 

 from each other. This instrument will line off the field into 

 shallow furrows not more than an inch in depth. In these fur- 

 rows, should be strown with the hand about four hundred 

 pounds of good super-phosphate of lime to the acre. The seed 

 should then be sown in the furrows, witli a seed-sower, so man- 

 aged that the seed shall not be deeply covered. We may 

 recommend the superphosphate for this crop, after many trials 

 of its merits. The chairman of this committee, used during 

 the past season, flour of bone, Mexican guano, and Rhodes' 

 super-phosphate, upon different contiguous portions of the same 

 field. The super-phosphate produced the desired and expected 

 effect ; the flour of bone fell some distance behind ; and the 



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