146 THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 
and in good soil; the large-growing sorts may be allowed 
eighteen inches — indeed, we have found it to pay to allow two 
feet between the drills when sowing in June and July, so 
rapidly do the coarse leaves meet and cover the ground.. We 
can think of no more appropriate designation for the thinning 
that should take place as the crop advances than to say that 
it must be terrific. We have, indeed, many times sent the 
people in to hoe field turnips with instructions to this effect : 
“Hoe them all out,” the result being that after “all” had 
been hoed out enough were left to make a grand crop. We 
frequently see turnips in gardens so crowded that they are 
only fit to puli to throw into the poultry-yard or the cow-byre. 
To economise seed, sow as thinly as possible, and as soon as 
the plants are large enough to handle thin them in a merciless 
manner to at least a foot apart each way. The thinning, how- 
ever, should not be done all at once — say, at the first thinning, 
when they are just large enough to handle, thin them to 
about six inches, and a week afterwards thin again to a foot 
or more, always leaving, if possible, the most vigorous plants, 
and being none too particular to keep the row r s precise,. for 
in weeding them out a lot will be found a little out of the line, 
and these generally bulb first of all, through having had 
plenty of room from the first. 
Enemies oe the Turnip. — The turnip-fly, or flea ( Halticci 
nemorum ), is the chief enemy of the crop, and, though a mite 
of a mite of a jumping thing, is not to be despised, for so 
terrible are its ravages in some seasons that it may be regarded 
as an emblem of one of the plagues of Egypt. This insect is 
a beetle, and a very pretty one, too, as the microscopist, who 
knows it, will readily declare. It attacks the plant in the 
seed-leaf instantly upon its emergence from the ground, and 
if the plant survives the attack it quits it, and is seen no 
more. In fine and rather dry seasons it is not at ^ all un- 
common for several sowings of turnips to be destroyed by this 
little jumper ; but if the plant grows quickly from the moment 
of its emergence, it survives the attack and soon appears none 
the worse for it. There are several modes of procedure for 
the protection of the crop against this enemy, and we will 
first consider those of a preventive nature. By digging the 
ground deeply, and adding at the same time a good dressing 
of manure, the chrysalids are in part buried and in part 
poisoned, and the plant grows so fast in consequence of the 
