I 



On the Best Mode of Storing Turnips. 229 



particularly in districts where stakes, and brushwood, and furze 

 are but seldom found in sufficient quantities ; but this difficulty 

 can easily be overcome by the use of hurdles made of the re- 

 qmred height, and used instead, which could, be removed and 

 housed for another year as the turnips are consumed. Other 

 methods have been practised by me, but to no great extent, and 

 most of these have given place to those already described, particu- 

 larly to the two last. A description of one or two other plans 

 may not, however, be considered out of place. 



On the first introduction into the neio-hbourhood of storing; 

 turnips, some farmers had a dislike to the loss of the top and 

 root of the turnip, of which it was necessarily deprived before 

 it can be placed in the stores : they adopted the following plan. 

 The turnips were taken up and carted in their entire state from 

 the field to some convenient meadow or part of a field near the 

 farmx-yard, and there placed close to each other on the surface of 

 the land, just in the same state as when growmg ; this they called 

 " pitching." The white and yellow tm^nips that I savv' pitched had 

 grown in strong land, and their tops were luxuriant, which for 

 want of the usual support drooped and died, and ha\dng rotted 

 adhered to the turnip, which was consequently refused by the 

 cattle. One chief advantage, too, of storing, namely, the having 

 turnips in a fit state for the cattle during all weather in the 

 winter months, and p/articularly during a continuance of snow and 

 frost, cannot be effected by that mode ; nor can placing them on 

 the surface of the land after their removal from their original 

 position, add anything to their size, whilst the weight will be dimi- 

 nished ; for the top, which has been so anxiously preserved, proves 

 injurious to the root, since young shoots of a considerable lengfth 

 which are pushed forth without deriving from the soil a corre- 

 sponding degree of nourishment, must diminish the substance of 

 the root. 



A neighbour of mine put some of his turnips in pits, which 

 he dug about 18 inches deep and about 6 feet in width; the 

 turnips were filled in the pit to the surface of the ground, 

 built up to a ridge, and thatched with straw about 3 inches in 

 thickness, over which was placed the soil that came out of the 

 pit and more from the adjoining ground, so as to put on a layer 

 about 6 inches thick. In the spring, vrhen they were opened, the 

 turnips were not in a better state than those in the other piles 

 adjoining ; they were, for want of air, in rather a moist state, and 

 at the bottom many were quite rotten, owing to the drainage from 

 the surface. The labour required by this method is greater than 

 in any other described ; besides, the rick-yard not generally having 

 a sufficient depth of soil for the pits, some field must be resorted 

 to for the purpose, which will necessarily be further off from the 



