Excessive Use of Turnips Undesirable. 51 



winter, but will continue fresh, and also advance in its 

 growth more or less according to the weather, and then 

 in March and April the farmer will find himself with a 

 good supply of food for horses, black cattle, and sheep. 

 Burnet may be mown once or twice in the season for 

 hay, but the author does not advise mowing when it is 

 desirable to use the plant for grazing. The author 

 recommends cutting the burnet in spring and feeding it 

 to cattle in the house, or farmyard. Altogether much 

 attention seems to have been paid to the valuable 

 qualities of this plant, and the circumstances of these 

 times are such that it would seem to be as valuable for 

 them^ as it evidently was to farmers in the year 1775. 

 (Vide also Appendix III.) 



I now turn to a point which was evidently of great 

 importance in Young's times, and which, in consequence 

 of grain growing having become unprofitable, has again 

 become of great consequence, for the expensive turnip 

 crop is not a crop that pays of itself, but is largely of 

 value because of the grain crop that follows. If, then, 

 grain is low in price, it is of obvious importance to 

 replace the turnip crop as far as we can by some 

 cheaper crop that will aid us in carrying our flocks 

 through the winter and spring, and, as an additional 

 reason for so doing, I may point to the well-known fact 

 that turnips, when used exclusively, are an unsuitable 

 food for sheep, as they are productive of disease — so 

 much so that it is almost proverbial amongst shepherds, 

 who all know that the more turnips we have the more 

 sheep disease. And I may mention that when there 

 was once a great failure in the turnip crop in this 

 neighbourhood the sheep never did so well. I met with 

 a remarkable instance of the danger of using turnips 

 freely in the case of a farmer to whom I let a farm 

 which had for some years been in my own hands. He 

 complained to me that he had met with a great loss 

 amongst his sheep, and yet when the farm was in my 

 hands the death-rate had been very low, and, in going 



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