JULY.] SOOT TURNIPS. 4O5 



DRILLED TURNIPS. 



But wherever hand-hoeing turnips is not well 

 understood, and men for it easy to be had, the 

 Northumberland system should by all means be 

 practised. The rows on the tops of the ridges, as 

 described last month, are hoed by women in great 

 perfection ; they should be set out in good land a 

 foot asunder ; and on weaker soils at nine inches. 

 I have known women send in their children before 

 them to thin the plants with their fingers, leaving 

 them at the distance required, and follow them- 

 selves with six -inch hoes for cutting the ground, 

 and making very good work. This is a great im- 

 provement, much deserving the attention of all 

 tanners who live in counties where the labourers 

 are ignorant in common turnip-hoeing, or where 

 they are scarce, or apt to impose in the prices de- 

 manded. The crops are as good, and in the 

 opinion of many, much better than broad-cast 

 ones. 



SOOT TURNIPS. 



In 1803, my son had a crop of turnips drilled in 

 the Northumberland manner, which, as soon as the 

 young plants were seen in the rows, he sooted at 

 the rate of twenty bushels per acre, throwing the 

 soot by hand out of a seed-lip, in a stream as near 

 as might be along the row of plants. They escaped 

 the fly, and were the only turnips in the neighbour- 

 hood that did so. It was a thought of his own, for 

 he never read the following passage in Ellis : 



D d 3 " Turnips 



