478 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



and more compact than ours, by reason of frequent rains, 

 parts with its organic matter less readily ; so that, however 

 wise the practice of summer fallowing may be there, it can 

 hardly be wise here, unless in case of our heaviest and most 

 clayey lands. 



British farmers raise turnips in immense quantities. Their 

 patches of turnips and rape cover annually five million of acres 

 — a territory of the size of Massachusetts. I have no means 

 of knowing what proportion of this is covered with turnips. 

 It may be three million of acres. As you traverse their coun- 

 try you see turnips before, and behind, and on every side. One 

 who has not witnessed it can hardly realize the extent and 

 beauty of their turnip fields. The cultivation in many parts, 

 and especially in Scotland, is exquisitely nice. It has seemed 

 to me as if there was but one weed on a thousand acres, and 

 as if there were as many as three women and half a dozen 

 children after that one. 



The turnip culture is the true policy for our British brethren. 

 They need the turnip both for purposes of feeding and to make 

 out the rotation by which the ground is to be prepared for the 

 wheat crop. We have no special need of it for either of these 

 purposes. Besides, their climate is probably the best in the 

 world for the turnip; ours is perhaps the worst. Still it may 

 be that we ought to cultivate the turnip more than we do. I 

 wish every farmer would try the experiment for himself. A sin- 

 gle acre is as good for the trial as more. Let it then be made ; 

 let it be repeated ; let results be compared ; and if we are to 

 go into the turnip culture to some limited extent, as I think it 

 highly probable may be found wise, let it be from proof posi- 

 tive, gathered on our own soil, that such is our true policy. 



It is an important fact that Indian corn is a most valuable 

 crop for all feeding purposes. Our English brethren are slow, 

 almost provokingly slow, to learn its worth. They seem to 

 think it fit only for lean pigs and starving Irishmen. If they 

 could grow it as Ave can, and then could get their eyes open to 

 its value, you would hear very little crowing over their turnips ; 

 and on the other hand, so long as avc can grow it with almost 

 entire certainty, failing less than once in a quarter of a ccntu- 



