SOWING-GENERAL CULTIVATION. 343 



advanced fields of turnips. The power of withstanding 

 the effects of drought adds greatly to its value as a farm 

 crop ; in places where it has been grown in the same field 

 with mangold- wurzel, it has been noticed as being less 

 affected by extreme hot weather than that plant. This 

 freedom from the "fly" and the "mildew" two serious 

 sources of injury, which probably, one year with another, 

 reduce the turnip produce of the southern districts of the 

 country fully one-half ought to have obtained for the kohl- 

 rabi more consideration than it has hitherto received. 

 We hear on all sides opinions expressed that our turnips 

 are less hardy in their nature than they used to be, and are 

 becoming each year more susceptible of injury from dis- 

 ease. 1 It is then quite time for us to look round us and 

 see what substitutes can be found for a crop that is ab- 

 solutely necessary for our present system of farming ; and 



1 In the course of a discussion at a recent meeting (Dec. 5) of the Central 

 Farmers' Club, one of the members (Mr. W. Bennett, Cambridge) spoke of the 

 increasing tendency to disease of the Swede crop, and strongly recommended 

 kohl-rabi as a substitute, which he himself had resorted to largely, and with 

 a good deal of success. " He had been growing it," he said, "for five years in- 

 creasingly, and his opinion was, that it was the most profitable crop upon the 

 land, with the exception, perhaps, of mangold- wurzel. It was excellent for 

 transplantation after a green crop, such as tares, rye, &c. The land should be 

 well cleaned, and the manure put on in the autumn. He transplanted it as 

 late as the third or fourth week in July, and it was as beautiful a crop as he 

 could wish to see. His practice was to drill it partly on the regular summer 

 fallows, just before drilling Swede turnips, and the plants were in capital state 

 when tares, &c., were gone. There was not much certainty about a crop of 

 turnips after tares. Once in five or six years they might succeed pretty well, 

 but, generally speaking, they did not ; whereas kohl-rabi succeeded beyond a 

 doubt. Being a hardy plant, it was difficult to kill, and for ewes and lambs 

 it \\ as as fine food as they could have in March and April. His hoggets were 

 now doing well on that grown on the fallows. He would strongly recommend, 

 therefore, that where the land was good for anything, kohl-rabi should be 

 substituted for Swedes. Ho believed that it exhausted the soil something more 

 than turnips did, but in such a year as the last it was of great advantage to him ; 

 for where he had grown turnips and fed them off with sheep, the barley was 

 all down and good for very little, but where the kohl-rabi grew it was stifFer 

 in the straw, of much better quality, and worth from 2 to 3 per acre more 

 than any other barley he had. The certainty of the crop, and the good return, 

 were, therefore, he thought, compensatory for any little exhaustion of the soil." 



