THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



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as in Britain, under the same careful cul- 

 ture. 



In England, the turnip is the renovator, 

 and the farmer's best friend ; light soils 

 would be utterly useless and impoverished, 

 were they not aided by this valuable root. 

 England has the advantage over America, 

 as to climate, which will there admit of 

 turnips being fed off on the land, and the 

 treading of the sheep in winter is a very 

 great advantage to a porous soil, which 

 is peculiarly adapted to the bulbous tribe 

 of vegetables. Turnips can be grown to 

 advantage on any kind of soil, except a 

 stiff clay ; in such a soil the roots cannot 

 penetrate, the fibres cannot search for food 

 to feed the plant, unless the soil is kept 

 soft by continual moisture ; but sand, gra- 

 vel, loam, or stony soil, are best adapted 

 to turnips, and are the most kind and 

 grateful to them. My mode in this coun- 

 try, by which I have been remarkably 

 successful, is as follows : 



The first crop of eight acres I sowed 

 on the river flats, a stiff loam, which was 

 yearly overflown in the spring. I could 

 not prepare the land according to the sys- 

 tem I pursued in England previous to 

 sowing. I could only plough it once, be- 

 fore the manure was put on, and then | 

 ploughed it in. The weeds sprang up 

 with the plants, and it required an im- 

 mense amount of labor to keep them from 

 choking them. Notwithstanding this, I 

 kept the weeds down sufficiently to keep 

 the turnips above them,and they flourished 

 beyond my expectations. The compost 

 I applied was so agreeable to their taste, 

 that they fed upon it, and thrived exceed- 

 ingly. It was a mixture of barn yard 

 manure, the refuse of slaughter yards 

 where thousandsof cattle had been slaugh- 

 tered, drawn into a mine or pile in the 

 winter, and all turned over, and mixed 

 well together in the latter end of March. 

 Give me such compost as this, so far de- 

 cayed as to cut out with a shovel, and I 

 shall never fear of obtaining a crop, un- 

 less the season is excessively dry. Such 

 a Composition very soon dissolves, and 

 forces the plant in its early stage out of 

 the way of the fly. 



This crop was sown broadcast at four 



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different periods; the first, the early part 

 of. June, (say the first week;) the second, 

 ten days later, and so continued until the 

 whole crop was sown. The object of the 

 different sowings, was to take advantage 

 in hoeing ; as soon as the first was finished, 

 the second was ready to commence, and 

 when the last hoeing was completed, the 

 first needed a second hoeing ; and when 

 at the end again, they were safe from the 

 weeds, and required nothing more doing 

 to, until pulled and put into the cellar. 



I cut the tops as I pulled them, and 

 drew them into the poorest part of the 

 pastures ; the cattle eat them with avidity, 

 and left their manure in the place it was 

 wanted. This crop, as near as 1 could 

 (t guess" averaged about twenty tons to 

 the acre. The second crop was on a si- 

 milar soil about the same number of acres, 

 and one-half of it under different treat- 

 ment. Part of this lot was what is here 

 called old meadow, but it was a complete 

 mass of couch grass. I had some breast 

 ploughs made, pared off the sod and burnt 

 it, and the quantity of ashes exceeded 

 any thing I ever saw in England, under 

 the process of "paring and burning" so 

 generally practised there for a turnip crop. 

 The ashes were all the manure applied, 

 and although sown later than those to 

 which the compost was applied, did not 

 incur one-quarter of the expense in hoe- 

 ing, the weeds having been previously 

 destroyed by burning. 



The crop was equally as good as the 

 former. I drew these tops on the pas- 

 tures as before. I " guessed" this crop 

 as averaging twenty-five tons per acre. — 

 The third crop was a field of about twelve 

 acres, of old pasture, and like the previous 

 one, a bed of couch grass. Part of this 

 field was a dark sand, and the other part 

 a lighter sand, either of them an excellent 

 soil for turnips. The whole of this field 

 was breast ploughed, and produced only 

 about half as many ashes as the former 

 one ; therefore, I added a slight dressing 

 of compost ; and, although a very dry- 

 season, I should say the average was cer- 

 tainly twenty-five tons to the acre. If the 

 season had been favorable, the weight of 

 produce would have been most extraordi- 



