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XXin. — An Account, founded on experience, of the Best Mode of 

 Storing Turnips, by lohich they may Jje preserved in their natural 

 state till the April or May succeeding the period of their being 

 taken up. By W. E. Geach, Tywardreath, near Lostwithiel, 

 Cornwall. 



(prize essay.) 



Every day's experience more clearly shows the advantages de- 

 rived from improved and better systems of management in 

 agriculture, as well as in the other arts. Prejudices may exist 

 against new systems on their first introduction, yet none are 

 more willing to adopt them when proved by practice than 

 the sons of the soil. 



To abolish, indeed, ancient customs in the practice of husbandry, 

 for the adoption of others as yet only on trial, would be rash ; 

 but caution on the other hand may be carried too far. It cannot 

 be doubted that, if the course of husbandry which our forefathers 

 pursued were still universally practised, the wants of an increasing 

 population would be but inadequately provided for : they, how- 

 ever, considered that their systems were good, and that the course 

 they pursued could receive little or no improvement ; and we 

 again, with the same limited vision, are led to believe that we have 

 also arrived almost at the point of perfection in agricultural art ; 

 but what farmer in the past century would have believed had 

 he been told that the population, which has since that distant 

 period nearly doubled, could be provided for by an improved 

 system of husbandry on the same land he then partly cul- 

 tivated ; that cattle would one day be fattened on those arable 

 farms where fodder was then scarcely to be grown in suffi- 

 cient quantities to support the animals required to perform the 

 ordinary labours thereon, and that large stores of turnips would 

 be provided for their winter's use on those farms ? — yet we have 

 lived to see these and many other equally great improvements 

 carried into effect, and have enjoyed a share in the advantages. 

 Our farms are now, through the cultivation of the turnip, v/ell 

 supplied with provender and with cattle to eat it, and the clemancl 

 for well-fed beasts has also increased in proportion to the quantity 

 fattened. 



That the growth of the turnip is of considerable advantage to 

 the farmer must be obvious to all, particularly where it is prac- 

 tised on those thin lands that are to be found in all hilly counties. 

 The system usually practised, before its introduction, of growing 

 two white crops in succession, has now become of little profit to 

 the farmer ; indeed it has been found that on some soils, without 

 an intermediate crop of turnips, little or no corn can be grown. 



