266 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



feet, with a drill-harrow. The sooner the preceding opera- 

 tions succeed each other the better. I have sown broad- 

 cast, but the expense of thinning and culture is increased. 

 A man will drill in three or four acres a day. We allow a 

 pound of seed to the acre, though half this, properly dis- 

 tributed, is enough. Sow from the 26th of June to the 10th 

 of July. 



' Culture. I use a cultivator, that may be graduated to 

 the space between the rows, drawn by a horse, as soon as 

 the plants can be well distinguished. This is repeated in a 

 few days, back and forward, and the implement carried so 

 close to the drills, as to leave only strips of from four to ten 

 inches, which are then thoroughly cleaned with a skim hoe, 

 and the plants thinned to eight and ten inches' distance. 

 The cultivator soon follows for a third time, and if necessary 

 the skim hoe, when the crop is generally left till harvest. 

 The great aim is to extirpate the weeds, and to do this while 

 they are small. 



' Harvesting is postponed as long as the season will per- 

 mit. The roots are then pulled up and laid on the ground, 

 the tops of the two rows towards each other. The pullers 

 are followed by a man or boy with a bill-hook, who with a 

 light blow cuts the tops as fast as three or four can pull. 

 Three men will in this way harvest, of a good crop, three 

 hundred bushels in a day. The tops are gathered into heaps 

 and taken to the yard in carts daily, for the stock, until 

 they are consumed. An acre will give from five to ten cart- 

 loads of tops. The roots are piled in the field if dry ; the 

 pits, two or two and a half feet broad, covered with straw 

 and earth, and as cold weather approaches, with manure, to 

 prevent frost. N. B. With a crow-bar make one or more 

 holes on the crown of the pit, which must be left open, to let 

 off the rarefied air and prevent the roots from heating. 



' Use. The tops serve for autumn. As soon as the mild 

 weather of spring will justify, I break through the frost, and 

 take the contents of a pit to my barn, and cover the roots 

 with straw or hay. From thence they are fed to my stock, 

 being first chopped up with a snik^ (Dutch meat-chopper,) 

 or spade. They are excellent for sheep, especially for ewes 

 that have young ; and hogs and horses eat them freely. 

 Steamed, they are used in the north of England for horses 

 as a substitute for grain. I have fattened sheep and bul- 

 locks upon them with profit. They constitute, particularly 

 firom February to June, an excellent culinary vegetable for 



