Moisture in Turnip-Land. 
351 
may frequently be observed, that dry turnip land ploughed up 
in June, and permitted to lie in a hot sun without rolling, 
for a week, or weeks together, loses much moisture. The 
evaporation, as noticed before, is frequently greater in the 
summer months than the fall of rain, therefore the land may lose 
by injudicious exposure, Avith a rough surface, more moisture in 
a few days than it can obtain from an ordinary fall of rain. 
The difference of a day, or even a few hours, in sowing 
turnips has frequently made the first sowing a much better crop 
than" the last, simply on account of moisture ; how much more, 
therefore, might not a week or ten days' exposure to dry weather 
affect the value of the crop ! It is by no means unusual in the 
end of April to notice some farmers stirring iXieiv dirty turnip 
fallows for the first time after the winter furrow. In such cases, 
when the land has to undergo repeated ploughings, scuflllings, 
&c., at so late a period of the season, the moisture is lost, and it 
is a mere chance whether it can be regained in time for the 
turnip crop. 
In the matter of hoeing turnips, there is a great diversity of 
opinion. Some say hoe turnips in dry weather if you want to 
attract moisture from the heavens by dews ; others say by hoeing 
the drought is let in to the plants, and therefore hoeing is 
injurious in dry weather. If any hoeing is injurious in dry 
weather, I think it is horse-hoeing liigJi ridges, when the hoe 
cuts down the sides of the ridges so much as to leave but a 
narrow strip of earth containing the plants exposed to the heat 
of the sun on all sides, with scarcely any chance of absorbing 
dew at night, from the small ness of the horizontal surface ex- 
posed, and the sides of the ridges imbibe little or no dew. I 
am confident, practically, that horse-hoeing high ridges in very 
hot weather is injurious, as the soil in many cases gets quite dry, 
and the plants for want of moisture turn blue and sickly. With 
that exception, however, 1 never saw any injury caused by the 
use of either horse or hand hoe in dry weather. When once the 
high ridges are reduced to a comparatively level state by horse 
and hand hoeing, hoeing then does good in dry weather. It 
must however be remembered, that there is much difference 
between turning: over a soil to the sun and running: a share or 
other cutting implement below the surface. In ploughing, the 
land is turned nearly upside-down, a fresh surface is exposed at 
every ploughing ; but in hoeing, the same soil, with but little 
change, remains on the surface. Most people know tliat the 
finer a soil is, the more dew does it attract. Gardeners know 
tins well, as they hoe very frequently when there are no weeds 
to kill. The best farmers know this also. In a word, then, I 
would say, hand-hoe without intermission in dry weather to attract 
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