Agricultural Chemistry — Turnijis. 



499 



K detailed consideration of tlie produce of the several seasons 

 under different conditions of manuring, as just g'iven, cannot fail 

 to show in which were the climatic influences most favourable to 

 the growth of the cultivated turnip. It will be remembered that, 

 without manure, the produce of the first of the three seasons was 

 much below the most meagre agricultural amount; and that in 

 the third and fourth it dwindled to almost nothing. This table, 

 on the other hand, shows that under a course of manuring the 

 third season yielded the largest crop, and the second invariably 

 the least. The average produce of the first season, where farm- 

 jard-dung is employed, is not superior to that of the second 

 season under similar conditions of supply, though it is so in each 

 of the cases where mineral manures alone are used. If we look 

 to the average weight of the bulbs, however, as given in the 

 table, it will be seen that the development was superior in the 

 first year to that in the second, though inferior to that in the 

 third. The seeming depreciation in the first season, indicated 

 by the average yield, arose from the adventitious circumstance of 

 the greater destruction of plants by disease in that season, from 

 which cause their number was greatly diminished. The dis- 

 crepancy is therefore apparent rather than real; the result 

 being dependent, not upon the amow^t of supply by season and 

 manure, but upon injury which is more frequently connected with 

 rich than with poor manuring. Again, neither the acreage pro- 

 duce nor the average weight of bulbs, where mineral manures 

 alone were employed, shows so marked a superiority of the third 

 season as compared with the first, as is evinced in the case of 

 the farmyard-dung, by which a large amount of organic matter, 

 was supplied to the plants. We shall have occasion to show 

 however, when treating of the effects of manures upon the growth 

 of the turnip, that there was a deficiency of carbonaceous siqiply 

 in the soil in the cases where mineral manures alone had been 

 used, which gave to the farmyard-dung its superiority in the 

 third season. Upon the whole it is evident from the results, 

 that of the three seasons the third was by far the best suited to 

 the growth of the turnip for feeding purposes, and that the 

 second was the least so. Of the real character of these seasons 

 some judgment may be formed by an inspection of the following 

 table, in which is given a summary of the statistics provided by 

 the rain-gauge and the register thermometer, in reference to the 

 climate of the three seasons during the months of July, August, 

 September, and October, which may be considered to include 

 the period of the active growth of the turnip : — 



