TURNIPS. 
There are two quite distinct species of Turnips grown, one called the English Turnip, and 
the other the Swede, or Ruta Baga Turnip. As they require somewhat different treatment, 
serious mistakes are some- 
times made on that point. 
In ordering seeds, care 
should be taken to state 
which kind is desired. 
The English Turnip, if 
designed for early use, 
should be sown soon as the 
ground can be prepared 
in the spring, so as to 
have the benefit of early 
showers, for the Turnip 
will not grow in dry, hot 
weather. For the main 
crop, for fall and winter 
use, sow in August, and 
the plants will have the 
benefit of the autumn 
rains. If the weather 
should prove dry, the crop 
will be light. The soil 
for Turnips should be rich and mellow. Sow in drills, from twelve to eighteen inches apart, and 
half an inch deep. When the plants are a few inches in height, and strong enough to resist the 
attack of insects, thin them out to some five or six inches apart in the drills. Two pounds of 
seed are sufficient for an acre. 
Fig. 1 represents the Strap- 
Leaved Purple-Top; 2, Orange 
Jelly; 3, Yellow Malta; 5, 
Jersey Navet ; 7, White Nor- 
folk. 
The Swede, or Ruta Baga 
Turnips are large, very solid, 
perhaps the most solid vegeta- 
ble that grows. The flesh of 
nearly all the varieties are yel- 
low. They do not grow as 
rapidly as the English Turnips, 
and should be sown as early as 
the first of June. The rows 
should be about eighteen inches 
apart, and the plants in the 
rows not less than ten inches. The engravings show 
6, Green-Top 
ENGLISH TURNIPS. 
SWEDE TURNIPS. 
fig. 4, Carter's Imperial Purple-Top; fig. 
We do not suppose that a warm, dry climate will ever be considered favorable 
to Turnip culture, and yet we never saw better crops in the most favored districts of England 
than we have seen in America. It is only in exceptionally dry seasons that our crop fails, with 
good culture. A soil rich in phosphates is necessary for a large crop, hence all bone manures 
are exceedingly valuable. With proper Turnip food and a moist season success is almost certain. 
There is then only one enemy to be conquered. The little black flea, or Turnip beetle, is very 
destructive when the plants are in the seed-leaf, but with a fair season and a rich soil the plants 
are soon in the rough leaf, when they are troubled no longer. Some good farmers sow twice the 
usual quantity of seed, and in this way save plenty from the little enemy, and this, we have no 
doubt, is the safest and most economical way, for it is better to feed them on plants that we do not 
need than on those upon which the crop depends. 
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