370 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



ENGLISH TURNIPS. 



This root probably contains less nutriment in 

 proportion to its bulk, than any other ; yet, from 

 the facility with which it is cultivated, it is by no 

 means undeserving of regard. If ten bushels of 

 English turnips can be produced with less actual 

 expenditure of time and capital than is requisite 

 to produce one bushel of potatoes or carrots, the 

 former is certainly the more profitable crop, as 

 no one can doubt that the nutritive value of the 

 former will, upon analysis, be found considerably 

 greater than that of the latter. 



On green sward, recently broken and properly 

 prepared, especially if there is an application of 

 some sort of alkaline matter, they do well ; so 

 rich crops have been produced on alluvial lands 

 where the deposit was of a silicious description, 

 intermixed with a slight percentage of aluminous 

 earth. But the largest and finest crops we have 

 ever seen were raised on land where the bushes 

 had been recently cut and burned, and the land 

 plowed quite shallow and sowed about the tenth 

 of July. Advantage should be taken of a recent 

 rain, when the seed should be sown, either broad- 

 cast or in drills, and slightly covered. If sown 

 in drills, the labor is more at first, but less after- 

 wards ; they are more conveniently tended, and 

 will probably produce a larger crop, than when 

 sown broadcast. 



The turnip is sowed in corn fields at the last 

 hoeing, to good advantage ; and we have not been 

 able to see that it decreases this crop any, com- 

 ing so late as it does in the season. On old lands 

 that have long been cultivated, it rarely makes a 

 remunerating crop, unless a considerable expense 

 is incurred in the application of lime or ashes, 

 which tend to drive away the worms, with which 

 old land is infested, and which supply the pecu- 

 liar nutriment which the turnip requires. 



In England this turnip is generally fed off by 

 sheep. The seed is sown, either broadcast, as 

 with us, or in drills, and as soon as the crop ap- 

 proximates maturity, a portable fence is placed 

 80 as to divide a portion of the field from the re- 

 mainder, and sheep are turned in to devour the 

 crop, on the ground. When the turnips within 

 the pale are all devoured, the fence is moved, and 

 an additional section included, and so on until 

 the entire crop is consumed. Two advantages 

 are secured in this way, viz.: the labor of har- 

 vesting is obviated, and the labor of conveying 

 manure to the field — by no means an insignificant 

 consideration — saved. The best English mutton 

 is made in this way. 



When a farmer has a large flock of breeding 

 ewes, probably the best vegetable he can culti- 

 vate for them is the English turnip. Fed to 

 these animals during the last stages of gestation, 

 and liberally for a week or so after parturition, 



the turnip appears to have a much more prompt 

 and salutary effect in promoting the secretion of 

 milk than the potato, without its physical prop- 

 erties. Before parturition, however, it should be 

 fed but sparingly, as a large quantity would in- 

 duce too copious a flow of milk, and tend to pro- 

 duce swelling and disease in the udder. Where 

 turnips are given once or twice a day, even in 

 small quantities, a free use of salt, or a mixture 

 of salt and ashes — say one part of the former to 

 two parts of the latter — is recommended. 



In our climate, turnips could not be fed where 

 they grew, later than November, but until the last 

 of that month we think they might be fed advan- 

 tageously in that way. 



CHEMISTBY FOB, THE MILLION. 



Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen are re- 

 garded as organic elements, because entering 

 largely into organized bodies — plants and ani- 

 mals. All the rest are considered as inorganic 

 elements, because not found in organized bodies, 

 except in small quantities — that which consti- 

 tutes the ash when the vegetable or animal mat- 

 ter is burned ; and it should be remembered — 

 what we have before stated — that when an or- 

 ganized body perishes, its organic elements pass 

 into the air and become a part of it, while the in- 

 organic fall as ash, and become a part of the soil, 

 and that whether the body be destroyed by the 

 rapid process of combustion, or by the slow pro- 

 cess of decay. 



Very few of the above fifteen substances are 

 ever seen in their pure, elementary state, except 

 in the chemist's laboratory ; and it is difficult for 

 those who have not seen them to form a just con- 

 ception of their properties. We have endeavored 

 to give as good an idea of them as we could by 

 mere description, because it is out of these that 

 nature constructs those compounds with which we 

 have to do in actual life — those which constitute 

 the rocks, the soils, plants, animals, our own bod- 

 ies, even, and all that we see about us. 



if two elements combine with each other, they 

 form what is called a binary (or two-fold) com- 

 pound. Three elements combined, form a ternary 

 (or three-fold) compound. But it seldom, or 

 never happens, that three elements combine with 

 each other directly. It is a general law of nature, 

 that the elements combine first in pairs, and then 

 these pairs combine with each other. If the warp 

 for a piece of cloth be of cotton and wool, here 

 are two substances. If the filling be of wool and 

 flax, here again are two ; but how many are there 

 in the texture ? Not four, but three, because one 

 is common to the warp and the filling. So it is 

 with chemical combinations ; — sulphur and oxy- 

 gen form sulphuric acid ; oxygen and iron form 

 oxide of iron ; now put these two pairs together, 

 and you have sulphate of iron, a ternary, or triple 

 compound. If every farmer in North America, 

 in addition to his practical skill, understood the 

 nature of this one compound, as well as the chem- 

 ist in his laboratory, it would be worth at least a 

 hundred millions annually to the continent. Mil- 

 lions of acreSj now almost useless, would soon be 

 producing valuable crops, and the reclamatioa 



