310 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



repeated ploughing or digging over, which should be 

 situated as near the house as can be, in order that birds 

 may be better kept from it. Other cultivators, however, 

 advise that the seed collected from a few turnips thus 

 transplanted, should be preserved and sown in drills, in 

 order to raise plants for seed for the general crop, drawing 

 out all such as are weak and improper, leaving only those 

 that are strong, and which take the lead ; and that when 

 these shall have formed bulbs, such as do not appear good 

 and perfect should be taken out, as by this means turnip 

 seed may be procured, not only of a more vigorous nature, 

 but capable of vegetating with less moisture, and producing 

 stronger and more hardy plants. The practice of trans- 

 planting the whole of the turnips for seed for the main 

 crops, they contend, is not only highly expensive, but in- 

 jurious, by diminishing the strength of the plants from 

 the destruction of their tap roots. Very good seed may, 

 however, be raised in either of the methods that have been 

 here described. 



112. "The best Norfolk turnip seed growers are of 

 opinion that unless the seed be always saved from trans- 

 planted roots, the stock will infallibly degenerate in the 

 manner here described. The statement that transplanting 

 once in three years is sufficient, was a mere pretence with 

 some of the growers to enable them to save two-thirds of 

 the heavy expense, which attends transplanting turnips, 

 and to get the same price for their seed as if it had been 

 properly sowed." 



113. Sowing of the Seed. The period of sowing the 

 seed varies according to the climate and other peculiarities 

 of the district, from the first fortnight of May up to the 

 first week of June ; in the turnip-growing districts of the 

 north of England and of Scotland, the middle of May, or 

 thereabouts, according to the condition of the weather, is 

 the usual period for the sowing of the swedes. The sow- 

 ing is done with the turnip drill, and rollers following the 

 coulters which deposit the seed, compress slightly the tops 

 of the ridges. 



