ESSEX SOCIETY. 59 



equal. An acre of turnips does but moderately well when it 

 produces 600 bushels to the acre ; — this would be equal to 100 

 bushels of corn, which is an amount that few fields in Massa- 

 chusetts ever produce. 



Neat Cattle do loell on turnips. — Gov. Hill tried it in the 

 winter of 1839. He gave his oxen turnips once a day, cutting 

 them with his own hands ; and he says, that with the aid of 

 the coarsest interval hay, they worked nearly every week-day, 

 and continued to thrive ; — and cows, fed with the same, and 

 corn butts and oat straw, yielded milk abundantly — much 

 more, says he, than if fed on the best hay. The objection that 

 the milk tastes of the turnip, is not well founded ; it will taste 

 if cows eat the tops ; and so will the beef of the animal that 

 feeds on tops ; but the most abundant feeding of the root itself 

 communicates no disagreeable flavor, but contributes to the 

 flesh of the one and the milk of the other. 



Neat cattle and sheep have trebled in England since the cul- 

 ture of the turnip crop commenced, about fifty years ago ; and 

 the increase is attributed, by writers on the subject, almost 

 wholly, if not entirely, to the turnip culture. " English agri- 

 culture has been revolutionized by it." Mr. Webster saw there 

 fields of turnips, of three, four, and five hundred acres. The 

 great extent of the turnip culture in Scotland, is evidence that 

 such crops cannot be unsuited to Massachusetts, as the climate 

 there resembles ours much more than the English does. 



Objections considered. — " Few barns," it is said, " have a 

 suitable cellar, and the labor of storing a large crop of turnips 

 in the house cellar, and of carrying them to the barn as they 

 are wanted, is an insuperable difficulty." The labor would not 

 be trifling, but how many tons of English hay, that could be 

 spared in consequence for the market, would it require, to hire 

 a boy to do all the carrying ? 



^^ Insects attack every kind of turnip. ^^ This objection is a 

 great one, it is admitted. The half acre of turnips of which 

 mention was made above, was green as the sea on the 1st of 

 July last, and about the 15th there were some half dozen spots 

 where the turnip louse was commencing. By the 1st of Au- 

 gust, every leaf was covered, and remained so a little more 



