TURNIPS. 129 



If barn-yard manure is to be used, there are two 

 methods of applying it ; one plan is to spread it broad- 

 cast all o^er the land, and another, to make ridges or 

 furrows, thirty inches apart and put the manure in 

 these furrows, carefully knocking it to pieces with the 

 fork or hoe. Cover up the manure by splitting the ridges 

 with the plow. A double mould-board plow does the work 

 twice as fast as a common plow, and in skillful hands 

 does it far better. The turnip seed is then drilled in on 

 these ridges, immediately above the manure. To do the 

 work expeditiously and well, not only a good double mould- 

 board plow is required, but a turnip drill with a roller 

 before and behind the coulter which deposits the seed. 



Without these implements and more or less skill in 

 their use, a young turnip-grower had better apply his 

 manure broadcast, and after the land is thoroughly pre- 

 pared, drill in the seed on the flat surface. He need 

 not regret the necessity for adopting this method, for it 

 is not without some advantages over the other. In ridging 

 and applying the manure between the ridges, you must 

 make the furrows wide enough apart to allow the wheels 

 of the wagon or cart to go in them. 



In other words you will have to make the ridges about 

 thirty inches apart, which is wider than it is necessary 

 to drill in the turnips. I find no difficulty, with a steady 

 horse, of running a cultivator between rows of turnips 

 or beets twenty-one inches apart, and if your land is rich 

 enough, you can grow a far larger crop in these close 

 rows than you can in wide ones. I think, however, it 

 will usually be better to have the rows two feet apart, and 

 to thin the turnips to ten or twelve inches in the rows. 



If the rows are two feet apart, and the plants one 

 foot in the row, we have twenty-one thousand seven 

 hundred and eighty plants on an acre. If the rows are 

 thirty inches apart, and the plants a foot apart in the 

 rows, we have seventeen thousand four hundred and 



