504 Farming of the North Riding of Yorkshire. 
sown earlier, it attains a premature ripeness, and never produces 
a successful or nutritious croj). The difference between swedes 
and other turnips as regards their sowing is scarcely worth notice. 
The former have generally the most liberal allowance of manure ; 
they are always ridged, and chiefly sown in small quantities — too 
small, we think, generally, thougli they are considered greater im- 
poverishers of the soil than white turnips; but their value in the 
spring, or in a severe hard winter, is greater than is generally 
imagined. The manure applied is usually a combination of farm- 
yard and artificial, in the proportions of two-thirds of the former 
to one-third of the latter. The rule is, that the farmer will have 
with ordinary management fold-yard dung for two-thirds of his 
turnip land — or, in other words, if he had 100 acres of corn, he 
will have manure for some 34 acres of turnips. They seldom, 
however, apply farm -yard dung exclusively to any portion, 
but spread the manure over nearly the whole surface, but in 
smaller cjuanlities, and apply the artificial manure nearly in the 
same manner. Bones are almost the universal agent employed in 
this process, and the increase they have effected may be fairly 
stated to be one-third over the produce of the district before they 
were introduced. The quantity applied is, on an average, about 
]2 bushels per acre, combmed with manure generally drilled with 
ashes, and j)erhaps on half the area of the district drilled by the 
Suffolk drill on the flat surface, the manure being previously 
ploughed in, though a very extensive and growing disposition pre- 
vails to sow them in ridges, where the horse-hoe may be more 
liberally applied. The farmers are every day increasing who 
apply sulphuric acid to the bones, and thus reduce the quantity 
of the latter by two-thirds, and with the best effects. 
7 here are few things in which science has more benefited farm- 
ing than in this application; and though we have observed it 
applied to wheat with but little success, for turnips it appears to 
be the most advantageous of any manure so far discovered, guano 
perhaps excepted. When ridged the turnips are sown with a 
barrow-drill, which sows one, or at most two ridges at once ; and 
this process on these soils has the tendency to deepen them, so far 
as the bed for the plants is concerned, to bring the plants directly 
upon the manure, and give scope for the horse-hoe, which on 
such soils, both as regards destroying the weeds and stirring and 
improving the soil, is a valuable implement. 
Turnip cultivation is the foundation of all ihe fertility of the 
district, and hence great attention is paid to it, and, at all hazards, 
a full crop of turnips must be secured, and varying crops from 18 
to 20 tons per acre are obtained. The greatest care is taken to 
have the plants singled out in hoeing, and the ridges, 20 inches 
wide, have plants set at about 7 inches distance. As the greatest 
