854 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



is prevented. After the water is come nearly to boil, pour it off, and replace the hot by cold water, into 

 which throw a good portion of salt. The cold water sends the heat from the surface to the heart of the 

 potato, and makes it mealy. Like all other vegetables, they are improved by being boiled with salt, which 

 ought not, therefore, to be spared [Mech. Mag. i. 13.) 



5369. Frosted potatoes may be applied to various useful purposes, for food by thawing 

 in cold water, or being pared, then thawed, and boiled with a little salt. Salt, or salt- 

 petre, chaff, or bruised oats, boiled with them, will render them fit food for cattle, swine, 

 poultry, &c. Starch, and paste for weavers, bookbinders, and shoemakers, may be made 

 from them when too sweet to be rendered palatable, and also an ardent spirit, from 

 hydrometer proof to 10 per cent over proof. 



5370. The diseases of the potato are chiefly the scab, the worm, and curl. 



5371. The scab, or ulcerated surface of the tubers, has never been satisfactorily accounted for ; some 

 attributing it to the ammonia of horse-dung, others to alkali, and some to the use of coal ashes. Change 

 of seed, and of ground, are the only resources known at present for this malady. The worm and grub 

 both attack the tuber, and the same preventive is recommended. The only serious disease of the potato 

 is the curl, and this is now ascertained to be produced by the too great concentration of the sap in the 

 tuber ; and this concentration, or thickening, is prevented by early taking up. This discovery was first 

 made by the farmers near Edinburgh, who observed that seed potatoes procured from the moors, or 

 elevated cold ground, in the internal parts of the country, never suffered from the curl and it conse- 

 quently became a practice, every three or four years, to procure a change of seed from these districts. 

 On enquiry, it was found, that the potatoes in these upland grounds continued in a growing state till the 

 haulm was blackened by the first frosts of October. They were then taken up, when, of course, they 

 could not be ripe. Subsequent experiments, which will be found detailed in The Fart?7er's Magazine, and 

 Caledonian and London Horticultural Transactions, have firmly established the fact, that the curl is pre- 

 vented by using unripe seed ; therefore the farmer ought to select his seed stock a fortnight or three weeks 

 before he takes up the general crop, as already recommended. It is also a safe practice frequently to 

 change the seed, and also to change the variety. 



5372. Shirreff, an ingenious speculator and practical agriculturist, is of opinion that there are only 

 two causes for the curled disorder in potatoes. The first is excessive seed-bearing, that is, carrying great 

 quantities of plums or apples ; from the effects of which, if the plant be not too far advanced in life, it 

 may recover for a time, by removing it to a shady or upland situation. The s cond cause is time or old 

 age, which never fails ultimately to bring the curled or shrivelled disorder, followed by death, on the 

 whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. An old decaying oak is an instance of the curled or shrivelled 

 state of trees from age, as is " the lean and slipi>ered pantaloon " of the curled disorder from old age in 

 the human species. An apple tree, again, that has carried extraordinary crops of fruit within a few years, 

 is often in the state of a potato curled from excessive apple-bearing ; so is a hart, or a buck, immediately 

 after the rutting season. Both the tree and animals will recover their health and vigour for a time, unless 

 they are too old, or have gone to the very greatest and last extremity in seed-bearing and venery, in which 

 cases the effects will be the same as those of time, viz. death. It is not then to over-ripening "the tubers 

 that the curled disorder in potatoes is to be attributed, but to time and seed-bearing ; that is, carrying great 

 quantities of plums or apples. 



Sect. II. 2%e Turnip. "Brdssica Ra/?a L. ; Tetradynamia Siliquosa L., and Cruci- 

 ferce J. Rave, Fr. ; Riibe, Ger. ; Rapa, Ital. ; and Nabo, Span. 

 5373. The turnip is a native of Britain, but in its wild state it is not to be recognised 

 by ordinary observers from wild mustard. It was cultivated as food for cattle by the 

 llomans ; and has been sown for the sa?}ie purpose in the fields of Germany and the Low 

 Countn'es from time immemorial. 



5374. jyhen they were introduced in this country, as afield plant, is unknown : but it is probable turnips 

 would bo found in some gardens of convents from the time of the Romans ; and it is certain that they 

 were in field culture before the middle of the seventeenth century, though then, and for a long time after- 

 wards, in a very inferior and ineffectual manner. It has been stated that turnips were introduced from 

 Hanover in George I.'s time; but so far from this having been the case, George II. caused an abstract of 

 the Norfolk system of turnip husbandry to be drawn up for the use of his subjects in Hanover. {Ca?>?pbell's 

 Polit. Survey, &c. vol. iii. p. 80.) The introduction of improved turnip culture into the husbandry of 

 Britain, Brown observes, " occasioned one of those revolutions in rural art which are constantly occurring 

 imong husbandmen ; and, though tl)e revolution came on with slow and gradual steps, yet it may now be 

 viewed as completely and thoroughly established. Before the introduction of this root, it was impossible 

 to cultivate light soils successfully, or to devise suitable rotations for cropping them with advantage. It 

 was likewise a difficult task to support live-stock through the winter and spring months ; and as for feed- 

 ing and preparing cattle and sheep for market during these inclement seasons, the practice was hardly 

 thought of, and still more rarely attempted, unless where a full stock of hay was provided, which only 

 happened in very few instances. The benefits derived from turnip husbandry are, therefore, of great 

 magnitude. Light soils are now cultivated with profit and facility ; abundance of food is provided for 

 man and beast ; the earth is turned to the uses for which it is physically calculated ; and, by being suitably 

 cleaned with this preparatory crop, a bed is provided for grass seeds, wherein they flourish and prosper 

 with greater vigour than after any other preparation." {IVeatise on Mural /tffiiirs.) 



5375. Turnips and clover, it is elsewhere observed, " are the two main pillars of the 

 best courses of British husbandry ; they have contributed more to preserve and augment 

 the fertility of the soil for producing grain, to enlarge and improve our breeds of cattle 

 and sheep, and to afford a regular supply of butcher's meat all the year, than any otlier 

 crops ; and they will probably be long found vastly superior, for extensive cultivation, to 

 any of the rivals which have often been opposed to them in particular situations. 

 Though turnips were long cultivated in Norfolk before they were known in the northern 

 counties, yet it is an undoubted fact that their culture was first brought to perfection in 

 Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, and Northumberland, and chiefly through the exertions of 

 Dawson, of Frogden, in the first named county, and of Culley, in the latter. 



5376. Drilling turnips, as well as other crops, evidently originated with Tull, whose first work, Specimen 

 of a Work on Horse-hoeing Husbandry, appeared in 1731. It appears that Craig, of Arbigland, in Dura- 

 frieshiro, began to drill turnips about 1745; and next we find Philip Howard, of Corby, drilling in 1755; 

 and Pringlc, drilling " from hints taken from Toll's book," in IIBQ or 1757. William Dawson, who was 

 well acquainted with the turnip culture in England, having been purposely sent to reside in those districts 



