2 



Present State of the Science of 



improvement of agriculture we have to look, unfortunately, at least 

 as much to the prevention of loss as to the increase of profit, it 

 may be worth while on this head to take an instance from a vege- 

 table of seemingly inferior value, the turnip. 



It is well known that in the south of England, during two or 

 three dry summers preceding the last, many farmers have lost nearly 

 the whole of their turnip crops ; and that by the drought and the 

 ravages of their accustomed foe, the turnip-fly only, independently 

 altogether of their new enemy, the black caterpillar : after repeated 

 sowings, a crop came up> but so late in the year, that, for want of 

 warmth, little or no root was formed, and the crop could not be 

 valued at more than 11. an acre. In the north, on the other hand, 

 where farm-yard manure is liberally given to this crop, and care- 

 fully applied in the ridges on which the seed is drilled in imme- 

 diate contact with it, where bone-dust is also purchased for the 

 same purpose, on such highly-cultivated ground there would be 

 far less risk of failure arising from the ordinary causes men- 

 tioned above. There is many a light-land farm in the south of 

 England, of 500 acres, on which 100 acres have not produced 

 turnips worth more than 200/. or 300/., while the more spirited 

 culture actually practised in Yorkshire might have yielded 20 tons 

 of Swedes, or 30 tons of turnips from each acre. It is difficult to 

 reduce the advantages of this superior yield to a money value. At 

 the price for which the former roots have sold in one neighbour- 

 hood we are acquainted with, a high price it is admitted, but still 

 one that has been paid for many years, they would have been worth 

 2000/. : so that the difference in the result of the two practices 

 would be 1500/.; or, if an acre of the land be worth 1/. yearly, a 

 difference of produce from one-fifth only of the farm amounting to 

 three times the rent of the whole. Without insisting, however^ 

 upon this case, which is an extreme one, the following quotation 

 from a recent statistical work will be sufficient for all practical 

 farmers : — " The produce of turnips, when cultivated in the 

 broadcast manner, varies from 5 to 15 tons an acre ; the latter 

 being reckoned a very good crop. In Northumberland and Ber- 

 wickshire, a good crop of white globe turnips, drilled, weighs from 

 25 to 30 tons, the Yellow, and the Ruta Baga, or Swedish, a few 

 tons less." 



We may consider, in another point of view, the national effect 

 which might result from a general improvement of agriculture : 

 that is, the additional employment that would arise from any 

 general effort made on the part of the landowner or the tenant to 

 improve permanently, as by drainage, for instance, the texture 

 itself of the soil : we do not mean of waste ground, but of that 

 which is already, and has been perhaps for centuries, in course of 

 cultivation. If a pound, only, were thus laid out on each acre, a 



