SEED-BEDS FOR TURNIPS 29 



which about 800 were under the plough, the easy 

 slopes, and the magnitude of most of the fields 

 rendered it very suitable to steam cultivation, and it 

 was our host's custom to get most of his first plough- 

 ings done by steam, following this up by a very 

 thorough preparation for his roots. There are few 

 subjects on which the opinion and practice of the best 

 farmers, even in the same district and on the same 

 soil, differ more than on this question of the amount of 

 working the land requires before sowing turnips. Of 

 course, on a heavy soil a fine but firm seed-bed must 

 be obtained, and cannot as a rule be attained in a 

 single set of operations ; but even on the lighter lands 

 men will be found who plough twice with an interval 

 between, cultivate, harrow, and roll repeatedly, then 

 leave the land to rest for a time before gathering it up 

 into the ridges upon which the seed will be sown ; 

 while others will prepare their land and get it sown in 

 a single round of operations. Even the question of 

 whether it is best to sow swedes on a stale or freshly- 

 moved tilth is still a matter of dispute. We are greatly 

 in need of more experimental work on the operations 

 of cultivation, this being one of the subjects with which 

 local experimental farms well might occupy themselves, 

 instead of with the permutations and combinations of 

 nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash which seem to 

 bound the imagination of too many of our agricultural 

 teachers. Our host was a strong advocate of the 

 policy of " thorough " in his treatment of the soil, and 

 his methods the deep cultivation, the working down 

 of a considerable layer to a fine crumb, which is then 

 packed tightly on to the subsoil and kept loose for the 

 top two or three inches only, were just those which have 

 recently been renamed dry-farming in America and 

 boomed as the discovery that is to make the desert 



