i 4 8 



FlNGER-AND-TOE IN TURNIPS. 



finger-and-toe is concerned, for some years — that is to say, 

 not till the next turnip crop comes to occupy the ground — 

 still it may so improve the intervening crops as to be 

 profitable. The use of ground lime in small quantities (5 to 

 10 cwt. per acre) has been extensively tested, but the results 

 do not show that lime in this form is more effective than 

 slaked lime, while it is more costly, and often less pure. 

 Moreover, such a small dressing, unless applied annually, has 

 but little effect on the disease, though it may have a considerable 

 influence in other ways. 



Other forms of lime are also more or less effective, though 

 none is so powerful as common burned limestone, which is 

 subsequently slaked before spreading. If gas-lime be used, it 

 should be put on not later than eighteen months ahead. 

 Used in this way, at the rate of 3 to 4 tons per acre, it has, 

 first of all, the opportunity of increasing the yield of the corn 

 crop, and in the following year it gets the chance to act on 

 finger-and-toe. Chalk has also a preventive influence, though 

 its effects are weaker than those of either forms of lime. 



Although many farmers appear to think that this disease can 

 only be prevented or cured by the use of lime, there is no 

 doubt that its spread and virulence can be greatly affected in 

 other ways. Attention has already been called to the extra- 

 ordinary infectious character of the disease, and this fact should 

 always be borne in mind by those who have to deal with 

 infected land. It often happens that, to begin with, the 

 disease appears only in certain small portions of a field, 

 frequently the headlands, and while it is still on a circumscribed 

 area, no trouble or expense should be spared to stamp it out. 

 If this be neglected it will soon spread all over the field, and, 

 with careless management, all over the farm. Working the 

 land while out of condition is a common predisposing cause of 

 an outbreak. Land that is soured by want of drainage, or a 

 patch that is suffering in consequence of a burst drain, 

 frequently exhibits the disease. 



Neglecting to keep land clear of charlock and other cruci- 

 ferous weeds must contribute to the spread of the disease, for it is 

 in such plants that it lives when a field is not under turnips. 



A method of suppressing the disease that is generally 



