34 Turnips Groum Without Manure. 



So far as I am personally concerned, then, I have 

 solved the problem as regards cultivating poor lands 

 without the aid of any manure, and have solved it to 

 the extent of growing, on the poorest land, crops 

 as good, and indeed, I may say, much better, than 

 those commonly grown on the best land ; and I have 

 done this, too, after leaving the land only four years in 

 grass, and on a system which is continually improving 

 the fertility of the soil, and deepening the area available 

 for the roots of plants. In the Big Haugh field some 

 drills of turnips were sown without any manure in 1901 

 and 1903, and answered so well that I sowed a whole 

 field without any manure in 1904 (vide Appendix III.) 

 The system, as the reader will have seen, is an extremely 

 simple one. It consists of creating, with the agency of 

 large-rooting and deep-rooting plants, a good sod, and 

 then relying on it for the manurial (except the turnip 

 manure) and physical conditions necessary for growing 

 two green and two cereal crops, after which the land 

 is again laid down to grass, and the creation of a good 

 sod again commenced. But I must warn the reader, as 

 I have elsewhere done, that this cannot be effected with 

 the aid of the grass mixtures commonly used in rotation 

 husbandry, as with these from six to eight years would 

 be required to form a sod, and even then that would be 

 far inferior to the sod which can be produced in four, 

 or even three, years, with the aid of the mixture I have 

 found to be most efficacious. 



This question now naturally arises — Why should I 

 have had to work out my own salvation at my own risk 

 and cost ? Why should I not have known exactly what 

 to do when I first took over the farm alluded to 1 And 

 why should farmers in Great Britain in general not 

 know exactly what to do in order to cope best with 

 the difficulties of these times, and how to do it in the 

 cheapest manner which combines with it the utmost 

 degree of efficiency 1 The answer to these questions 

 simply is because of the negligence of our Government, 



