CHAP, iv TURNIPS. 957 



fulness. As in the case of swedes, there are many " selections " under 

 different names. For early feeding it is usual to grow one or more 

 of the White-fleshed varieties, such as the Purple-Top Mammoth, 

 Pomeranian White Globe, and Lincolnshire Red Globe. Some of the 

 Hybrids are also suitable for early use if sown at the beginning of June, 

 particularly the Yellow Tankard and All the Year Round. For late 

 autumn and winter feeding, the hardier kinds of White Turnip, such as 

 the Imperial Green Globe and Hardy Green Round, are grown, 

 together with the H} r brid varieties, of which the Purple-top and Green- 

 top Aberdeens are perhaps the best known. An excellent new Yellow 

 Turnip, called the Favourite, was introduced a few years ago. It was 

 raised by crossing a Purple-top and a Green-top Hybrid, and is largely 

 superseding the older sorts. The Stratton Green Round, the Grey- 

 stone, and the Early Six-weeks are well adapted for growing after 

 corn-crops, such as early peas, or others which have been harvested 

 at the beginning of August ; or for following a somewhat late bastard- 

 fallow. The cultivation for these crops is very similar to that for 

 swedes, the aim being to get a fine mellow tilth. The land is, how- 

 ever, more often prepared in early summer, as it frequently carries 

 some other crop during the spring. 



In calculating the quantity of stock which a crop may carry, the weight 

 of the crop must be considered. If there is an average of 20 tons per 

 acre, including swedes, kohl-rabi, and mangel, it may be taken that an 

 8-stone sheep will eat 1 cwt. per week, with diy food in addition. A 12- 

 stone sheep under the same conditions would require 1^ cwt. ; and an 

 old sheep, if allowed as much as it could eat, with a short allowance 

 of dry food, would probably consume between 2 and 3 cwt. per week. 

 On the basis of the 8-stone sheep, 400 sheep would eat an acre of 

 roots in a week ; therefore in a winter season on roots which occu- 

 pies about 36 weeks 36 acres would be required for 400 sheep. For 

 a mixed flock the quantity required can be readily calculated from this. 

 For cattle, with an allowance of f cwt. per day, an acre of roots weigh- 

 ing 20 tons would last 114 beasts a week ; from which it may be calcu- 

 lated what acreage can be spared for the cattle. 



Familiar as we now are with the turnip, its cultivation on a large 

 scale as a field crop was commenced in comparatively modern times. 

 Though we have records showing that turnips were in field cultivation 

 at the beginning of last century, yet it was Charles, Viscount Townshend, 

 of Rainham, Norfolk, who in 1730 first gave to them that status as a 

 field crop which the % y had never before acquired. More than a century 

 later, the " Quarterly Review," referring to this event, said : "A new 

 source of agricultural wealth was discovered in turnips, which, as their 

 important qualities became known, excited in many of their early 

 cultivators much of the same sort of enthusiasm as they did in Lord 

 Monboddo, who, on returning home from circuit, went to look at a 

 field of them by candle-light. Turnips gradually replaced the old bare 

 fallows, filled the cattle mangers with food in winter, and, when fed 

 off on the light soils by sheep, consolidated while they manured them, 

 and prepared the way for corn crops on wastes that had hitherto only 



