398 



Farming of Lincolnshire. 



in growth, the superiority of their nutritive qualities,* their 

 endurance of frost, and the g-reater weight per acre, must be 

 invincible arguments in their favour, and such as will continue 

 to extend their culture in th}s and other districts. Upon the 

 Heath it is generally denied that more swedes would be an 

 advantag-e, though merely a fifth part of the turnips are of that 

 kind. Experience here must be deferred to, and its voice is 

 given thus : " A few swedes are of service for late keeping, but 

 the reason that more is not grown is because we can get a greater 

 weight per acre of the white turnips.'' Swedes on the Wolds 

 have seldom answered on a large scale, though repeatedly tried ; 

 and the practice of sowing a large proportion has been discon- 

 tinued. If sown wide apart and allowed to get large, they canker 

 and rot, whether left in the earth all winter or taken up ; and if 

 left near, they are small, hard, and of little value. In some locali- 

 ties it is complained that the land will not produce them of a suf- 

 ficient size ; and under a certain diameter any turnip will have 

 little within it except rind. In other places they are considered 

 as too exhausting for that light land ; hence they are likely to 

 continue rare in the district, the Scotch yellow (or green top) 

 turnip, which bears the frost pretty well, being universally sown 

 in small plots for last eating. 



7. The Grounds of the present practice of consuming the Straw 

 with Oilcake given to Beasts on light Arable Farms. 



All the straw which is not required for bedding is consumed 

 by the stock, because it forms a more valuable manure when 

 converted into dung than when merely rotted into litter ; and it 

 is eaten by cattle, because they are the most suitable animals for 

 the purpose. The more beasts there are kept the larger will be 

 the quantity of dunp: ; and the better the food with which they 

 are supplied, the richer will be the quality of that manure. Of 

 the various feeding stuffs purchased for cattle the linseed oilcake 

 has become most general, and the extra food will therefore con- 

 sist either of oilcake or tiirnips drawn from the land. The 

 phrase drawn " exactly expresses the reason why turnips are 

 not commonly used in the straw-yards upon farms which grow 

 them in perfection, and will not trample into a state of clay " 

 whilst they are being removed from the field : the light land has 

 not the natural fertility which admits of such an abstraction of its 

 produce, and could not bring a crop of corn if the roots (which 

 had formed themselves chiefly from the air, on purpose as it were 



* The nutritive value of swedes as compared with white turnips has been estimated 

 as 5 to 3, — loo lbs. of good hay being equal to 308 lbs. of swedes, or 504 lbs. of white 

 turnips. 



