10 MR. FAY S ADDRESS. 



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 something 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 of well 

 conducted experiments in feeding, the correctness of which chemical 

 analysis has fully confirmed. One lb. of hay of the best quality is 

 about equal to five lbs. 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 materially 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 has been brought into leaf, takes a great portion of its nutriment 

 from the atmosphere, leaving a large part of the manure which has 

 been necessarily applied to it to force its early growth, for the crop 

 that shall follow. The expense of cultivation need be no greater 

 than for any crop of half its value, if proper drills and horse hoes 

 are used ;* and there is nothing which repays the care and attention 

 bestowed upon it so well. The advantage to the farmer by the 

 cultivation of roots, has been briefly but exceedingly well stated in 

 the Report of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture for the 

 present yearf, while at the same time we learn from it how completely 



*Turnips are sovm in England by a drill drawn by horse power, sowing several 

 rows at the same time, and manuring by the same operation. After they have 

 come into the rough leaf they are horse-hoed, the machine used being worked by 

 one horse, the wheels running the same width as those for the drill machine, and 

 hoeing perfectly the same number of drills. The same instrument can be widened 

 or narrowed to work across the drills, cutting out the plants at equal distances, so 

 that nothing more is required to be done by hand than pick out the few plants left 

 too close together, after the cross hoeing. This instrument works so accurately 

 that it is used between the rows of drilled wheat, barley, rye and oats. It will weed 

 thoroughly eight or ten acres in a day, and is drawn by one horse and attended by 

 one man with a boy to lead the horse. With these two machines, twelve acres of 

 turnips, at least, can be cultivated at an expense of labor not much greater than 

 we should be forced to apply to one, in order to have the work as well done. The 

 same machines can be altered to sow com and to hoe it, or any other kind of grain 

 or seed. 



tThere is an evident misprint or omission in the valuable Eeport of the Secretary 

 of the Board of Agriculture at page 37. It reads "nearly 3 millions of acres (in 

 England) are annually appropriated to the turnip crop, and the annual value of 

 thia crop amounts to nearly 2 millions." It should probably read 200 millious. 



