OF CROPS USUALLY CULTIVATED. 287 



agriculturist ranks so high, always dunged for turnips in 

 the preceding year ; that is, the turnip was the second crop 

 after the dung, the muck in this case being completely in- 

 corporated with the soil, before the seed is sown. This 

 practice has been followed by some farmers in the Mearns, 

 and it is said with success. Mr Kerr, however, on this 

 head remarks, that this plan, though frequently tried, has 

 never answered in Berwickshire, where recent dunging is 

 found, by experience, quite necessary to ensure a good crop 

 of turnips. He knew a farmer who lost his turnip crop, in 

 a great measure by dunging before winter, to save spring 

 labour. 



Though the process of drilling turnips in Scotland is 

 well known, it would be a great object gained to the farm- 

 er, if some means could be devised, for making them vege- 

 tate equally in a dry season. The seed is sometimes steep- 

 ed, to make it spring readily, and even the drills watered 

 after the seed is deposited ; all these arc known and occa- 

 sionally practised in Scotland. But by the following acci- 

 dent last summer, Mr Church of Hitchill has been led to 

 conclude, that sowing the seed on the moist dung, as spread 

 in the drills, would secure a certain and regular vegetation, 

 and afterwards ploughing down the dung in the usual man- 

 ner, but perhaps not covering it quite so deep, would be a 

 practice well worth adopting in a dry season. Mr Church 

 having prepared his ground for sowing Swedish turnips, 

 some seeds of the globe turnip were deposited by accident 

 on the dung spread for the Swedish, before it was ploughed 

 in, which was sown in the usual manner. On the same 

 day, about an acre of the globe turnip was sown on land of 

 the same quality, and dunged in the same way. From the 

 dryness of the season, neither the Swedish nor the globe 

 turnips vegetated till a month after sowing, and these crops 

 turned out moderate. But the seed which had accidentally 



