292 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
I April 3, 1880. 
SWEDES. 
So high a place is assigned for Turnips among farm produce, 
that the reviser of Stephen’s “Book of the Farm” tells us in the 
part recently published, that the Turnip crop has to a large extent 
given to Scottish agriculture the eminence it has attained, and it 
has made the eastern half of Great Britain the greatest cattle feed¬ 
ing district in the world. This certainly appears a somewhat bold 
statement, hut it has the logic of facts to support it, and for ex¬ 
ample we may take Norfolk as a central county in that district 
where cattle-feeding and Swede-growing are pre-eminent. The 
cattle, we much regret saying, are not bred there, but the roots are 
grown there, and it is our experience of Norfolk root-culture that 
prompts us to write this article. 
A weak point in the culture of any crop is precisely that which 
proves a hindrance to the ordinary and therefore the general prac¬ 
titioner. The weak point in Swedes is the tendency to mildew of 
the early sowings. Well, the fact that some of the early sown 
Swedes suffering from the attacks of mildew is patent enough to 
all who have tried them, but it has no weight in Norfolk, and the 
practice of sowing Mangolds early in April, and following at once 
with the first crop of Swedes, is a custom of that county which 
nothing outsiders may say will alter. Certainly from all we have 
seen of Swede culture in that county Norfolk farmers can teach 
the rest of us something, and have nothing to learn from us ; yet 
in the adjoining county of Suffolk there is an interval of fully a 
month between the sowing of Mangolds and Swedes. Our especial 
attention was drawn to this matter from observation in Norfolk, 
and from the invariable superiority of the Swedes of one of our 
Suffolk farms in the hands of a tenant farmer. He was the 
younger son of a large landed proprietor ; he had learnt farming 
in Norfolk, and instead of seeking his fortunes in the Colonies, had 
wisely resolved to stick to the old country and see what he could do 
with one of the numerous vacant farms which are now to be had at 
a nominal rent. He was intelligent and observant, and he found it 
answer much better to follow the Norfolk practice with Swedes 
rather than adopt that of his Suffolk neighbours. 
For these reasons, combined with the results of our own prac¬ 
tice, we again recommend our readers who have suitable soil to sow 
the first crop of Swedes in April, and there can be no better pre¬ 
paration for this useful crop than sheep folding on Rye, for we 
have only to follow the folds closely with the plough and to sow 
on the flat to be tolerably certain of a full crop. But if the land 
is poor then we would prepare for it very much as for Mangold ; 
only if a full dressing of chemical manure is required use only 
half cwt. nitrate of soda per acre, with three-quarter cwt. muriate 
of potash, 2^ cwt. steamed bone flour, and 2| cwt. mineral super¬ 
phosphate, placing the farmyard manure in the furrows precisely as 
for Mangolds, and drilling the whole of the chemical manures with 
the Swede seed. 
Exception has been taken to sowing Swedes on the ridge from 
the fanciful idea that the plant would be more liable to suffer 
from drought than if sown on the flat. We have repeatedly 
explained how admirably both ridge sown Swedes and Mangolds 
withstand drought when sown early on the ridge, because the roots 
obtain so much moisture from the dung when once the plant is 
growing freely, and there is the additional advantage of a fine seed 
bed and deep friable soil. The ridges practically vanish under the 
frequent use of horse and hand hoes, and in autumn it is an easy 
matter to decide from its appearance whether a crop was sown on 
the ridge or flat. The quantity of seed per acre is ruled by the 
condition of the soil. If it is fine, as it ought to be, 3 lbs. of seed 
is sufficient, but when it is less friable from 4 to 5 lbs. of seed may 
be required to allow for losses through roughness of soil or fly. 
This early crop is less liable to suffer from attacks of fly than the 
later ones, but it does suffer occasionally, and we lost plant so much 
from fly last year on part of a field that it had to be resown. 
Useful as farmyard manure is to Swedes, it is not indispensable, 
and those farmers who are only able to procure the chemical 
manures we rcommend may use them with full confidence, for we 
may remind them that under the experiments conducted in Sussex 
by Professor Jamieson, a crop of 29 tons. 17 cwts. of Swedes per 
acre was obtained in pure sand practically without organic matter, 
the only plant food in the soil being that of the manure mixture. 
This was in 1882, and the following year the Swedes in the same 
field weighed 30 tons 7 cwts. per acre, and Professor Jamieson said 
he had never seen so heavy a crop even in his own county of 
Aberdeenshire, famous as it is for Swede culture. 
WORK ON THE HOME FARM. 
That important factor to successful farming, the weather, has been 
more than usually fickle since our last note was written, and there has 
been so much rain in the eastern counties that corn sowing has been 
brought to a standstill. It is true enough that sun and wind soon render 
the surface dry enough for the resumption of work, but farmers on the 
Essex clays will hardly get a warm, dry, fine seed bed for the Barley 
which they persist in sowing. Well indeed will it be for them if they 
are induced by adverse weather to sow Oats instead of Barley. 
In the counties west of Rugby the weather has been so favourable 
that western farmers are well forward with all their corn sowing. 
Most west country farms have a better adjustment of cropping than 
those in the east, and we may give as an example of this sound practice 
Lord Spencer’s co-operative farm at Harleston of about 330 acres 
equally divided into permanent pasture and arable crops, of which last 
year about 92 acres were under corn, and 74 under roots and seeds. Of 
four farms of about the same size which are in hand in East Anglia, 
only one has 80 acres of pasture, the pasture on each of the farms being 
30 acres. This preponderance of arable land was an outcome of dear 
corn. It continues by mere force of habit and custom, and it has made 
the struggle with the difficulties of hard times much more severe than it 
would otherwise have been. 
Never have we been more strongly reminded of the urgent need for 
shelter for grazing animals than during the recent broken weather. We 
have seen horses, cattle, and ewes with lambs all turned out to take 
their chance upon rough stubble feed, without any dry food, and practi¬ 
cally without shelter. Only a few hours before writing this note we 
saw the sheep being driven to market for sale in wretched plight. 
Foot-rot and hunger had rendered the ewes very low in condition, 
and some of the lambs were so weak that they had to be carried. 
Certainly he would be a bold man who would risk his means in the pur¬ 
chase of such animals. Upwards of forty lambs died last season in a 
flock of several hundred, which had been got together at auction sales, 
and which were sent to us for feed upon an off-hand farm. They were 
the property of a large flock-master who goes from market to market 
and buys “ anything,” and it is in this way that a sale is found for such 
starvelings. 
MKTKOROLOaiCAL OBSERVATIONS. 
CAMDEN SQUARE, LONDON. 
Lat. 61° 38'40”N.; Long. 0° 8'0" W.; AlUtude, 111 feet. 
DATE. 
9 A.M. 
IN THE DAY. 
d 
■3 
1890. 
Marcli. 
n" d 
Hygrome¬ 
ter. 
0 . 
o-d 
TSd 
£? 
So 
g=o 
3 S'" 
H 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Badiation 
Temperature. 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max.} Min. 
In 1 On 
sun. ' gi'ass 
Sunday.2.3 
Monday..24 
Tuesday .... 25 
Wednesday.. 20 
Thursday..,. 27 
Friday .28 
Saturday .... 29 
Inches. 
29.G93 
29.663 
29.290 
29.780 
30.056 
30.094 
29.917 
dej?. 
47.9 
44.2 
46.7 
48.9 
61.7 
62.9 
62.8 
deg. 
45.2 
42.2 
44.1 
47.6 
50.6 
61.3 
49.9 
S.W. 
S. 
S.W. 
S.W. 
S.W. 
S.W. 
w. 
deg. 
42.0 
42.2 
42.3 
43.0 
44.4 
45.7 
46.2 
deg. 
60.8 
47.9 
65.2 
60.4 
66.4 
66.2 
67.1 
deg. 
42.9 
36.2 
43.1 
40.7 
49.0 
60.1 
44.1 
deg. 
72.6 
59.3 
88.9 
103.7 
71.3 
100.8 
91.8 
deg. 
39.3 
31.0 
37.9 
35.2 
45.4 
46.4 
86.1 
In. 
0.184 
0.155 
0.030 
29.771 
49.2 47.3 
43.7 
66.2 
43.7 
84.0 
38.8 
0.367 
KEMAEKS. 
23 rd.—Frequent heavy showers of rain and occasional hall with Intervals of bright sun¬ 
shine. 
24th.—Occasional gleams of sun early; frequent spots of rain from 10 A.M., and heavy 
rain from 4 to 7 P.M.; fair evening. 
25th.—Cloudy all day. 
26 th.—Cloudy early; bright mild day. 
27th.—Cloudy throughout. 
28th,—Cloudy early ; fine bright day. 
29th.—Brilliant early; cloudy by 10 A.M. and only occasional sunshine after; bright 
moonlight night. 
A fine warm spring week, the maximum in the shade on the 28th being unusually 
hlghfor March.—Q. J. SYMONS. 
