284 THE TUKNIP CROP. 



be to add to our present area of cultivation by carrying our 

 tillage operations deeper and deeper into the soil, and thus 

 materially increase our producing capabilities. This has * 

 already been touched upon in regard to wheat (p. 38). 

 The roots of a vigorous turnip may, in a suitable soil, 

 frequently be traced to a depth of 2 to 3 feet. The benefits 

 of thorough draining are now so universally acknowledged, 

 and the mode of carrying it out so well understood, that 

 no stagnant water need now be seen anywhere in our 

 fields ; while the judicious employment of the proper im- 

 plements and we have enough to meet every possible 

 requirement of soil at the proper time, will secure that 

 fine division of the soil (tilth) so necessary for the success- 

 ful cultivation of the plant. The necessary chemical con- 

 ditions of the soil must be secured by the application of 

 manurial substances ; some soils, of course, are naturally 

 more fertile than others, but all require certain additions, 

 to compensate for the large amount of fertilizing substances 

 (plant-food) which are abstracted from the field by each 

 successive crop. 



We shall at once recognize why these conditions are 

 essential to the successful growth of the plant if we briefly 

 follow it through its career in the field. In the month of 

 May or June we place a small seed in the ground, and in 

 October we expect that seed to have produced a fully-deve- 

 loped plant in fact, in five short months, to have, through 

 its peculiar vital powers, elaborated from the soil and the 

 air an amount of organized substances equal in round 

 numbers to 1,000,000 times its original weight, taking the 

 weight of the seed at -fath of a grain, and that of the plant 

 (bulb and top) at 6 Ibs. This enormous increase can only 

 be obtained through the effective agency of the root and 

 the leaves; and if these are not placed by the cultivator 

 under conditions favourable to their peculiar powers, they 

 cannot exercise them in a healthy and vigorous manner, 



