TURNIP VERSUS POTATO. 



17 



mixed with roots, pumpkins, squashes, apples, &c. 

 make a good and cheap diet. Tlie question now is, 

 what roots shall we prefer ? 



Shall we set aside the potato, the admiration and 

 theme, for half a century, of a wondering set of ad- 

 mirers, who have discovered, not only that it does not 

 impoverish, but that it actually enriches, our soils? 

 We cannot part with the potato. When ripe, it is 

 wholesome food : it has become a necessary of the 

 dinner-table. When unripe, it is one of the most 

 poisonous articles we attempt to use for food. Let us 

 have potatoes enough for the table still ; but, for fat- 

 tening beasts, we can do better. Potatoes are said to 

 subdue the new-broken sod, and fit the ground for 

 future crops. We agree they subdue the land, and 

 they oppj^ess it. They exhaust our light soils more 

 than corn does, and are not followed by so good crops 

 as corn is, when both have an equal share of manure. 

 We are aware our doctrine is somewhat new : we shall 

 attempt to prove it satisfactorily in our future numbers. 

 But to the turnips. We think we can raise three to 

 four bushels of the yellow turnip — the ruta baga — as 

 easily as one of potatoes, and that the turnips exhaust 

 the soil much less than they. All theory is decidedly 

 in favor of our position, as the turnip has more extent 

 of leaf, more superficial surface to be acted on by the 

 atmosphere, than the potato has : it consequently gets 

 more of its living from the air, and less from the earth. 

 Again, the turnip has but little root, and cannot draw 

 so largely from the soil as plants with more extended 

 ones. We can raise excellent turnips with a little sur- 

 face manuring, and the crops that follow are generally 

 good. Potatoes require, in old land, already subdued, 

 much manuring. The crop of grass that follows is 

 not equal, in our sandy loams, to the grass that fol- 

 lows Indian corn, called by most people a great ex- 

 hauster. 



The cost of seeding an acre of potatoes is no small 



