THE MANSE GARDEN. 193 



Turnip. The ambitious, who by early sowing 

 strive for the earliest turnips, reap, after a season of 

 fair promise, the futility of their scheme in a crop of 

 shot stems, with bulbs no bigger than a radish. It 

 is difficult to say whether the turnip is annual or 

 biennial: the season of sowing, the state. of the 

 weather, the richness or poverty of the soil, may 

 determine the issue whether the growth shall im- 

 mediately proceed to the production of flower stalks, 

 or go only to the swelling of the root and leave the 

 operation of seed-bearing to another year. There 

 is room for much speculation as to a procedure ap- 

 parently so sportive and arbitrary; but, which is more 

 important, the fact is certain, that in every case of 

 too early sowing, as in February or the beginning of 

 March, however well the crop may appear for a time, 

 there will be no useful produce at all. Late crops 

 will shoot in consequence of standing too long after 

 having formed their bulbs ; but these will shoot the 

 first thing they do a circumstance not easily ac- 

 counted for, but its being known is enough to direct 

 the sower. 



To have turnips early, then, the rule is to promote 

 a rapid growth. Let the ground be well pulverised 

 by winter digging and ridging, dry, and full of rich 

 and well decayed manure. Sow about the beginning 

 of April, in drills of the least depth and one foot apart. 

 Drilling is the best mode for all crops of this kind, 

 whether late or early, in garden or field. The early 

 Dutch is the best to begin with ; the stone for the 

 next crop, and the yellow bullock or the late Dutch 

 yellow for a winter crop. For an autumn crop, when 

 it grows to a good size, the Malta turnip, remarkable 

 1 



