74 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. Part I. 



winter in the ground in my garden well covered 

 with corn stalks and leaves from the trees ; and, in- 

 deed, this is so very little a matter to do, that it 

 would be monstrous to suppose, that any farmer 

 would neglect it on account of the labour or trou- 

 ble ; especially when we consider, that the seed of 

 two or three turnips is more than sufficient to sow an 

 acre of land. I, on one occasion, planted twenty 

 turnips for seed, and the produce, besides what the 

 little birds took as their share for having kept 

 down the caterpillars, was twenty-two and a half 

 pounds of clean seed. ~ 



34. The sun is so ardent and the weather so 

 fair here, compared with the drippy and chilly 

 climate of England, while the birds here never 

 touch this sort of seed, that a small plot of ground 

 would, if well managed, produce a great quantity 

 of seed. Whether it would degenerate is a matter 

 that I have not yet ascertained ; but which I am 

 about to ascertain this year. 



35. That all these precautions of selecting the. • 

 plants and transplanting them are necessary I know 

 by experience. I, on one occasion, had sown all 

 my own seed, and the plants had been carried off 

 by the Jly, of which I shall have to speak presently. 



I sent to a person who had raised some seed, which 

 I afterwards found had come from turnips left pro- 

 miscuous to go to seed in a part of a field where 

 they had been sown. The consequence was, that 

 a good third part of my crop had no bulbs ; but 

 consisted of a sort of rape^ all leaves and stalks 

 growing very high, while even the rest of the 

 crop bore no resemblance, either in point of size or 

 of quality to turnips in the same field, from seed 

 saved in a proper manner, though this latter was 

 sown at a later period. 



36. As to the preserving of the seed, it is an in- 

 variable rule applicable to all seeds, that seed, 

 kept in the poci to. the very time of sowing, will 



'■^■ix ,U'-K': 



i\ 



