BXPERIMENTS ON TURNIPS. 



[Apyendtz, 



No. VIII. 



RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS IN PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE, 

 MADE IN 1842. 



I have much gratification in laying before my readers the results of a second 

 year's series of experiments undertaken in consequence of suggestions thrown 

 out in previous parts of this Appendix, or of opinions expressed in the body of 

 the work. It is one of the numerous good results which have followed from the 

 issue of these Lectures in a periodical form that I have the pleasure of incorpo- 

 rating in the same volume the results of experiments made during two succes- 

 sive years. No one who studies with care the experiments which follow, and 

 the few remarks I have appended to them, will hesitate in pronouncing them to 

 be as a whole the most valuable contributions to accurate expei-imental agricul- 

 ture ever hitherto published. The results are not all equally important, nor all 

 equally instructive, but they are the first fruits of a new line of research, which 

 will lead us hereafter to the discovery of important general truths. They show 

 that practical men are now on the right road, and — spreading as scientific know- 

 ledge now is among the agricultural body — 1 trust there is no fear of their here- 

 after being prevented from pursuing it. 



A.— EXPERIMENTS ON TURNIPS. 

 I. The first series of experiments was made with the view of obtaining an- 

 swers to these two questions : 

 1°. What are the relative effects of different saline substances upon the turnip crop 



under the same circwnistaTices 7 and 

 2°. How far may these substances be employed alone to supersede farm-yard manure 

 in the culture of turnips 7 



Turnips grown in Salter's Bog. — Field furrow-drained and subsoil ploughed. Manures ap- 



flied partly in drills before sowing on 1st June, and partly as top-dressing on 28th July, 

 842. The salt and nitrate of soda last applied were dissolved in water ; the others applied 

 dry. TTie quantity of land in each plot was one-thirteenth of an acre. 



) 



The foregoing experiments were made at the suggestion of Lord Blantyre on 

 the home farm, at Lennox Love, near Haddington, and have been reported to 

 me, at his Lordship's request, by Mr. William Goodlet, under whose immedi- 

 diate superintendence the whole were conducted. 



The reader will not suppose^ because they proved what are commonly called 



