ROOT CROPS. 175 



ruta-bagas in one day. The crops raised in both these cases 

 are large, but not larger than those raised in a simpler manner 

 — twenty-four hundred bushels having grown last year on two 

 and a half acres of land belonging to the chairman of this 

 committee. 



Turnips should be harvested early in November. The safest 

 and most convenient place for storage in this climate, is a dry 

 cellar, into which they should be put (first having been topped 

 with a knife,) with the tap-root entire and such earth as will 

 cling to them, after a day or two of drying, and after being 

 transported from the field, and passed through the handling 

 necessary to pack them. If stored in a pit they should be freed 

 from dirt before being thrown into the pit, and a rough roof 

 raised over them, covered with earth. Space for ventilation and 

 for straw covering should be left between the roots and the roof. 

 A tile or a small piece of stove-pipe will serve for a ventilator. 



The best variety of ruta-baga now known, is Skirving's 

 King of the Swedes. We would recommend that what seed 

 our farmers raise for their own use should be from this root. 



It is most earnestly to be hoped that the attention of the 

 farmers of this county will be more strongly directed to the 

 raising of root crops in the future. The cultivation of more 

 perishable crops, and of those fitted almost solely for human 

 consumption, is a secondary matter when compared with the 

 raising of those more important products upon which the per- 

 manent success and development of the agriculture of the county 

 depend. Whatever tends to increase our stock of cattle, by 

 adding to our store of winter food for them, goes far towards 

 elevating this great branch of industry to the entire agricultu- 

 ral capacity of the county, and towards giving us new and 

 more substantial prosperity. 



The committee would call the attention of the society to the 

 following statement made by Mr. J. J. H. Gregory of Marble- 

 head, with regard to his crop of Turban squashes, entered for 

 premium. The suggestions of Mr. Gregory with regard to the 

 cultivation of the squash, the mode of manuring, planting, 

 thinning the vines, &c., are worthy of careful consideration 

 — particularly at this time when the crop has so extensively 

 failed under other hands than his own. 



Geo. B. Loring, Chairman. 



