THE TURNIP CROP. 303 



parts of England, throughout Scotland, and Ireland; the lat- 

 ter in the southern parts of England where the soil and cli- 

 mate are dry, although the practice is even being introduced 

 in districts where the drilling system has hitherto been almost 

 universally adopted. The operation of "drilling" is one 

 difficult to be described in writing, even with the aid of 

 diagrams. Suffice it to say for the benefit of the unin- 

 itiated that the soil, by means of a double mould-board 

 plough, is thrown up in a series of angular or rounded 

 ridges ; on the apices of which the seed is deposited. A 

 very usual distance between the ridges is 27 inches, which, 

 however, is frequently increased to 32 inches. The manure 

 is spread in the spaces or hollows between the ridges, and 

 the ridges, by the double mould-board plough, are " split " 

 and thrown over on each side, covering up the manure and 

 forming a new series of ridges, in the centre of which the 

 manure is placed. The seed is sown, as above stated, on 

 the top of the ridges. When artificial manure is applied 

 in addition to the farm-yard dung, it may either be ap- 

 plied mixed up with the manure, as described in the last 

 paragraph, or sown on the ridges along with the seed by a 

 seed and manure "drill." Another mode is to sow or 

 throw the manure by hand on the top of a light covering 

 of soil which is given to the farm-yard dung lying between 

 the ridges, by a light harrow passing over the tops of the 

 ridges; the ridges are then "split," covering up both farm- 

 yard dung and artificial manure, and forming a new series 

 of ridges as before described. 



106. When turnips are sown on the " flat," the land is 

 prepared, manured, and well harrowed and cleaned from 

 weeds, and the seed sown by the drill. Bat this method 

 has its disadvantages as well as advantages when adopted 

 in dry soils, as those of the "marine formations" of jfehe 

 South of England. The following remarks on this point 

 and description of a new method of preparing land and 

 sowing turnips on soils of this description, we take from 

 an article by a well-known writer in the pages of " The 

 Mark Lane Express." After stating that the ridging or 



