No. 133.] . 233 



pensible materials I have mentioned. The unfitness of new 

 putrescent manures for root crops is ascertained. They give out 

 more ammonia than is good for them. The ammoniacal manures 

 are hardly fit for root crops. The phosphate of ammonia is goc4 

 after a year's application to the soil. 



The Chairman adverted to the success of carrots sown with 

 Tje. 



Mr. Lyon said that England has raised hoenty tons on one 

 acre. 



The Chairman; eighteen hundred bushels of parsnips have been 

 raised on one acre. 



Judge Van Wyck; Jersey has raised 1450 bushels on one 

 acre. Twenty or thirty years ago, carrots and^arsnips, were very 

 little grown in Great Britain as field crops, the expense of raising 

 them, such as plowing, subsoiling, trenching and manuring very 

 high, were too great, the produce would not indemnify the farmer 

 for his outlay. Besides, they were considered as very exhausting 

 to the soil, more than any plant raised, cabbage perhaps excepted, 

 scourges which no land could bear even for a short time, without 

 being reduced to sterility. The agricultural periodicals of that 

 day or some of them, speak of these vegetables in this light. It 

 was owing no doubt considerably to prejudice against these roots 

 and in favur of another that such language was held. Turnips 

 were then considered far the most profitable root for the farmer ; 

 they served as good food for his family, and the best for most of 

 his domestic animals. They were considered both healthy and 

 nourishing, more so, than any other of that day, they were not 

 considered as an exhauster of the soil, but rather to improve it by 

 properly cultivating them. Great Britain had been long in the 

 use of them, nearly or quite a century — they suited their moist 

 climate. They reclaimed by them much of their barren heaths 

 of which this crop left the land in a fine state for producing most 

 of the grains and useful grasses, rich crops of which in a few years 

 followed, and large districts of country so unprodHctive, that they 

 would hardly keep animals alive, much more fatten them, were 



