22 



vent it by any mode of cultivation, or by the application of 

 any kind of manure. Of two fields adjoining each other, 

 the soils of which in all respects shall be similar, one shall 

 always (excepting in a very rainy season), produce fingers 

 and toes, while the -other has never been known to have 

 done so. A Lincolnshire friend, who is an excellent agri- 

 culturist, but who cannot prevent his land from producing 

 these worthless turnips, is of opinion that the disease is 

 bred in the roots, as the roots called fingers and toes are 

 covered with little round knobs, in which, he says, no per- 

 foration appears on the outside, although a grub is in the 

 middle of them. I am inclined to think that ihe grub 

 deposits its egg in the very young state of these roots, and 

 that in their growth, the egg gets covered over, as the bark 

 of a plant will grow over and cover the root of a shoot 

 which has been cut off. These knobs, each containing a 

 maggot in the middle, are common in all turnip crops in a 

 dry season. In the spring, when the maggot is about to 

 come out, partridges and birds of many kinds peck the 

 knobs off to get at their contents. As it appears that none 

 of the intelligent persons residing where these fingers and 

 toes are common, can tell what causes them, it may 

 perhaps be thought presumption in me to give an opinion 

 on the subject, but I am inclined to think that these 

 collateral roots shoot out in consequence of the tap root of 

 the turnip in its infant state having been eaten oft by some 

 grub ; which grub I should try to kill by ploughing up the 

 land in the autumn, and laying on, and well mixing with 

 it, poumJed rock salt, or refuse common sail, or unadulte- 

 rated common salt, which in the end is the cheapest, at the 

 rate of 3l)cwt. or two tons per acre ; this would cause the 

 land to be sterile for a time, but from the frequent stirrings 

 which should be given to all land intended for common 

 turnips, the sterility will have ceased before the seed is 

 sown in July. My friend says he has not observed that 

 these diseased turnips have the least effect on the corn 

 crop. But if a good crop of turnips had been eaten on the 

 land, instead of these, the crop of corn would surely have 

 been greater. 



CARROTS. A very useful, but an uncertain and expen- 



