ITEMS ABOUT TURNIPS AND OTHER ROOT CROPS. 53 5 



Mr. S. W. Cole exhibited a large, irregular cabbage turnip. He said tliis kind yields as 

 well as the rula-baga, and will keep as long. He raised 200 bushels in dnlis between his 

 nurseiy rows. He lets them stand a foot or more apart ui the rows. Thinks he could raise 

 800 bushels per acre. 



.1. W. Pkoctoii, Esq., of Danvers, thought we ought to inquire which of the roots we 

 can raise to the best advantage — beets, turnips, or carrots. He thought carrots most prof- 

 itable ; beets exhaust the soil ; 35 tons of carrots had been grown on an acre in Essex 

 county ; 32 tons were not uncommon — worth eight dollars a ton. Carrots are good to pre- 

 paie the ground for onions. 100,000 bushels of onions had been grown in Danvers in a 

 year. Five hundred bushels is a common crop per acre. 800 bushels have been made to 

 the acre. 



Thirty-two tons at S8— $256 to the acre ! Do not these cases show the ad- 

 vantages of a policy that produces factories and villages all over a State, to con- 

 sume, on the spot, these bulky commodities ? It is there that swamps and 

 marshes, and the rich'landy, are brought under the plow and the spade. Will 

 the reader look back to our quotation in this number, page 476, from Hon. J. R. 

 Poinsett, addressed to the Agricultural Society of South Carolina, as to the 

 effect of home manufactures on the prosperity of States that encourage them ? 



The following Table may be useful in other respects, while it shows how 



familiarly English writers speak of from thirty to fifty tons of turnips to the 



acre : 



CALCULATION OP SPACES, WEIGHTS AND PRODUCTS. 



How much more nutriment, according to this Table, does an acre produce in 

 turnips than in hay, if Mr. Brooks's opinion of their comparative value should 

 even nearly approach to accuracy, more than making up for the vast difference 

 in the expense of the two crops ? 



The nutritive properties of the white turnip, however, according to Sir Hum- 

 phry Davy, are but 42 in 1,000, and we cannot but suspect that Mr. Brooks, 

 for whose general intelligence and judgment we have great deference, very 

 much overrates the nutritive properties of this root as compared with hay. 



But let us proceed. We have concluded to take up the subject thus early be- 

 cause, for those who would propose to make experiments on a considerable 

 scale, it is not too soon to he thinking about the land most suitable — how it is 

 to be put in the best order, and where the manure is to come from. It presents 

 a fair case for the use of bones or guano. But, after all, while farmers are 

 thinking and talking, and Editors writing so much about manures, and looking 

 for short cuts to arrive at great results, is it not to be doubted whether we are- 

 not losing sight too much of that good old system of Tull, the father of agricul- 

 tural improvement in England ? — we mean thorough tillage ! — putting the ground 

 itself in the nicest and best possible condition ! Will our readers please think of 

 that ? 



We have somewhere, as it is believed, lately seen that a premium was award- 

 ed by the Queens County Agricultural Society for a crop of turnips of eight hun- 

 dred bushels to the acre ! 



Nearly twenty-nine years ago, iu the old Americaa Farmer, while yet it was 



