404 
Farming of Dorsetshire. 
One third of the swedes is generally kept for feed till too late 
for barley sowing, and the field is put into rape or early turnips. 
Autumn wheat follows instead of spring corn, and in the spring 
following the field is sown with clover and rye-grass ; and, after 
one year's ley, falls into wheat again in the regular course. 
Where there is a tendency to c:lover sickness, a field is taken out 
of the course and sown to sainfoin, coming to clover only once 
in twelve years. The turnips required for late feeding are mown 
when their greens are 6 or 8 inches high, and in this way a very 
late crop of perfectly sound roots is obtained. A constant supply 
of green food is thus kept up without the aid of water-meadows. 
This practice of mowing turnips — not for their tops, but for the 
preservation of the bulbs — besides its novelty, has such obvious 
recommendations about it, that a few words of explanation re- 
specting it may be useful. For early feed, Mr. Saunders finds 
Skirving's swedes by far the best ; they produce the most keep 
of any swede for early feed, but if not housed or pitted before 
frost they lose much of their quality. The sort grown for mid- 
winter or spring is a very yellow-fleshed variety with a green 
rind, commonly known as the " old green top ;" but there is a 
great difFiculty in getting the right sort^ which will keep as good 
out in the field all through the winter as in the house, no matter 
how hard the frost may be. They will keep sound till May, and 
in the spring will sustain more sheep per acre than Skirving's, 
which appear double as large in the autumn ; for this variety is 
not a large sort to look at, though it grows deeply underground. 
Mr. Saunders has grown this sort twenty years, his attention 
having been first called to it by observing, after a very hard 
winter, that this was the only turnip not rotten. To use his 
own phrase, " they saved the lives of his sheep " on that occasion. 
They are sown in the early part of June, as fast as the green 
crops are fed off : none are sown later than the first week in 
July ; the common green I'ound-top being sown after that time. 
As soon as the greens get up 6 or 8 inches high they are mown 
down to within an inch of the bulb, and this is not found to 
deteriorate their bulk, or the "proof" or quality of keeping. 
Part of the second year's clover has one ploughing, and a crop 
, of turnips is taken before wheat. 
Upon VVarmwell Farm, Mr. Saunders adopts a seven-field 
course, thus : — 
1. Swedes. 
2. Barley (stubble sown with vetches or rye in the autumn, 
fed off the following spring). 
3. Turnips (fed off in autumn). 
4. Wheat. 
5. Clover upon the stubble (mown for hay, and clover heads 
hurdled off). 
