200 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



with perfect truth, that the failure of the turnip crop in that 

 country would be a heavier blow to its prosperity than the 

 failure of the Bank of England. It is owing principally to the 

 liberal use of the turnip that English cattle and sheep have 

 reached their present high state of perfection, making the land 

 support four times the number that could be maintained under 

 the old system of hay and pasture feeding. If we should adopt 

 their practice in this respect, there is no reason why we should 

 go abroad to purchase, at enormous prices, animals which in 

 all essential qualities are no better than, if as good as, our 

 native stock. 



There is a reason for extending the cultivation of the turnip 

 which no farmer who has felt and witnessed the present sum- 

 mer's drought will think lightly of. Our climate is one of vicis- 

 situdes, more extreme in their character than any other under 

 the sun. The old saying, that " it never rains but it pours," is 

 strictly true of New England. It is either a deluge here or a 

 drought ; and the most weatherwise of us cannot truly foretell 

 what the coming month shall bring in the way of heat or cold, 

 sunshine or rain. We are tolerably certain, however, of one 

 thing, that a " dry time may be expected " during the summer. 

 It is therefore important that we should vary our crops as much 

 as possible, so that the periods of their planting and maturing 

 may run through the entire season. The fate of the hay crop 

 is pretty well settled before the turnip is even planted, and a 

 drought that may cut short our maize may pass away in season 

 to give us a good field of turnips. We may thus have some- 

 thing to hope for in them long after we despair of every thing 

 else. , 



The value of turnips as food for cattle and sheep, compared 

 with other vegetable products, has been ascertained by a series v 

 of well-conducted experiments in feeding, the correctness of 

 which chemical analysis has fully confirmed. One pound of hay 

 of the best quality is about equal to five pounds of turnips ; and 

 as twenty tons of the latter may be easily grown to the acre, 

 it will be seen that we have the power to increase very materi- 

 ally the nutritive products of the soil by the cultivation of this 

 root, leaving the land in better condition than after any other 

 crop. For it must be borne in mind that the turnip, when it 



