1914. 
THE RUKAL NKW-VORKER 
2<11 
A NEW JERSEY TURNIP CROP. 
On page 35 an Ohio farmer tells the 
readers of a catch crop of turnips which 
proved profitable to him. This prompts 
me to write of the method followed on 
this farm, where Swede turnips are a 
regular yearly crop with which we have 
been fairly successful, and for which 
there is a steady local demand. It was 
formerly believed here that no turnip 
quite equalled in quality those which 
were grown in the cooler climate of 
Canada, but for years this belief has been 
proved to be unfounded, until now the 
Canada product does not find a market 
so long as the home-grown can be had. 
Each Spring we take a piece of sod or a 
corn stubble if it is free from weed seed. 
Early in May we plow under 10 or 12 
two-horse loads of stable manure to the 
acre, about eight inches deep. Then the 
work of the disk harrow begins, no other 
harrow is quite as good as a pulverizer 
and weed killer. Every two or three 
weeks until about the first of July, this 
ground is disked, until we have started 
and killed all grass and weeds and have a 
nice mellow seed bed for the turnips. 
I will say here that the Spring 
droughts of each of the last four years 
made our soil so dry that weed seed lay 
in the soil without sufficient moisture to 
sprout them before the turnips were 
planted. After the rains came these 
dormant weed seeds sprang up and made 
expensive cultivation necessary. Before 
the last disking we broadcast from 400 
to 500 bushels per acre of a good com¬ 
mercial fertilizer analyzing three per cent, 
ammonia, eight phosphoric acid and six 
potash, with 10 bushels of unleached 
wood ashes well disked into the soil. 
This soil is a naturally drained sandy 
loam running from one-third to one-half 
sand- We have found this fertilization 
on this soil produces a rapid growth from 
start to finish, which is essential if a 
good turnip is grown. We formerly made 
the drills 30 inches apart, but our cus¬ 
tomers complained that the turnips grew 
too large to be conveniently measured 
when retailed. We then drilled 15 inches 
apart and thinned the plants to six or 
eight inches in the rows. This reduced 
the roots to a more desirable size. 
These narrow rows prevented the use 
of horse cultivation that we used on the 
30-inch rows, and called the wheel hoe 
into use. We are careful to adjust the 
drill so that not too many seeds are sown, 
as too many plants make expensive thin¬ 
ning necessary. Our drill does not give 
us much of this work to do. We find 
that if the seed is good three-fourths of 
a pound is about the right quantity per 
acre. This seed question is a very im¬ 
portant one to the turnip grower. A few 
select their best-shaped roots and grow 
their own seed, to be sure their stock is 
right. I have suspected some seed was 
grown from culls, and I am convinced 
that some seedsmen mix old and new seed. 
In my early experience I one year lost 
more than $100 by buying one pound of 
seed which proved untrue to name. On 
another occasion I introduced a disease, 
which it took some years to get rid of, 
by planting a trial one-quarter pound 
sent me by a well-known seedsman. 
We find the Improved Purple Top 
Swede variety about fits our market and 
is almost invariably a symmetrical globe 
shape, and always tender and of the best 
flavor. If the soil is moist we run our 
drill about one inch deep, but if a 
drought is on two inches is better. With 
fresh seeds and a moist soil in a week 
after planting the rows will show and 
the earlier the wheel hoes put an end 
to stray weed or sprouting grass root 
the better for the crop. In droughty 
years we find it well to give two cultiva¬ 
tions. 
Some grow'ers are troubled with the 
black flea beetle, thrips and the cabbage 
worms, but of late years we have had 
no trouble with theso. If they did ap¬ 
pear we would broadcast air-slaked lime 
when the dew was on the leaves. The 
turnips are pulled from the first to the 
twentieth of November. We choose a 
time when the soil is quite dry. We 
remove the tops and fibrous roots with 
a moderately heavy knife. We put in 
piles of eight or 10 bushels in the field 
until dry, and cover with the tops until 
we are ready to draw them from the field 
to protect them from the sun and frost. 
We bury them in permanently kept pits 
holding about 40 bushels each, and cover 
with forest leaves a foot thick, with a 
thin layer of dirt on top to prevent 
the leaves from blowing away. They 
keep more crisp in these pits than in a 
cellar, and are easy to get at 
any time during the Winter, but as a 
rule a large part of the crop is marketed 
directly from the field without pitting. 
One wholesale firm usually buys nearly 
the entire crop, doing their own cartage, 
and the price ranges from 30 to 35 cents 
per bushel. The yield is from 200 to 400 
bushels per acre. 
J. AXDKEW CASTERI.INE. 
Lime and Phosphate or Mixed Fertilizer. 
I am planning a five-year rotation, 
corn, oats, three years grass, using most 
of my manure on grass seeding. Which 
will give me the better results on my silo 
corn, 450 pounds commercial fertilizer 
per acre 4-8-7, or one ton lime, 300 
pounds South Carolina rock, 14 per cent., 
and about five tons manure taken from 
cow dump and spread broadcast on Fall 
plowing? I am of the opinion that $100 
invested is burned lime at $4.25 per ton 
and rock analyzing about 14 per cent, 
phosphoric acid will give me better re¬ 
sults ultimately than to put same amount 
into commercial fertilizer. n. n. p. 
Milford, N. Y. 
Such a case needs both experience and 
discussion. Opinion is not worth much 
without studying the soil and the crops. 
For a few years on such a soil the lime 
and phosphate with a small amount of 
manure will be likely to give satisfactory 
crops. This will be specially true if 
some cover crop like rye and vetch is 
seeded in the corn to be plowed under 
later. That would most likely keep up 
the humus supply and provide some 
nitrogen. If on heavy land little potash 
would be needed, but on light soil the 
time would probably come when some 
potash must be used. You should not 
trust to opinion alone—though the plan 
seems reasonable—but you should test 
the matter. Use the mixed fertilizer on 
haif an acre or more of this Corn and 
watch results. We would like the experi¬ 
ence of other farmers on this point. Will 
lime and phosphate and a small dressing 
of manure take the place of a mixed 
fertilizer? On our own farm, where the 
soil is naturally hard and sour, cover 
crops and the annual use of lime surely 
take the place of part of the chemicals. 
Fifteen tons of silage corn will take off 
80 pounds of nitrogen, 30 of phosphoric 
acid and 105 of potash. 
Mustard Seed in Manure. 
We have a field of a few acres which 
has become infested with mustard. We 
seeded it to buckwheat, which was badly 
mixed with mustard. Some of this buck¬ 
wheat was given to the hens to scratch 
over, and being forgotten later, was mixed 
with other manure when henhouse was 
cleaned. How can we use this manure, 
to avoid spreading the mustard further? 
Sullivan County, N. Y. j. n. 
Wild mustard is one of the most 
troublesome of weeds in fields not fre¬ 
quently given over to cultivated crops. 
The seeds will retain their viability for 
a long time, having been known to ger¬ 
minate after having lain dormant in the 
ground for 15 years. It is an annual, 
maturing its seed each year, and can, of 
course, be eradicated from a field devoted 
to some hoed crop, and kept clean. Grain 
fields have been cleared of it by spraying 
them while the mustard was in blossom 
with a solution of iron sulphate, 75 to 
100 pounds to 52 gallons o? water. This 
kills the mustard without injuring the 
grain. Probably your best plan now will 
be to use this manure upon corn, or some 
other hoed crop, and take pains to de¬ 
stroy all mustard plants that come up 
before they have gone to seed. Perhaps 
you can put that manure upon the same 
field from which the mustard seed came, 
and thus corner your enemy where you 
can concentrate your energies upon him. 
A short rotation of crops will enable you 
to subdue the mustard by giving frequent 
opportunities to destroy it with cultiva¬ 
tor and hoe. 
“DEATH, TAXES 
AND 
The Mapes Manures 
Are the Only Three Things in This World I Am Sure of” 
WROTE AN OLD CUSTOMER OF OURS 
Passing by the first two, he and every other farmer cer¬ 
tainly has every right to be sure of THE MAPES MANURES. 
They have been used for fifty years by the most intelligent, 
the solidest and most successful farmers, who have banked 
absolutely on 
I. THE RECORD OF MAPES IN THE FIELD. 
Our record in the field for the past fifty years is too well- 
known to require more than a mere reference. In this connec¬ 
tion, “lest we forget,” in the American Agriculturist’s Prize 
Contest, open to the entire United States, the largest crops 
of Potatoes and Corn grown on commercial fertilizer alone 
were grown with Mapes; 669 bushels of Potatoes on one 
measured acre with the Mapes Potato Manure, and 213 bush¬ 
els Shelled Corn on one measured acre with the Mapes Corn 
Manure. 
II. THE MAPES RECORD WITH THE EXPERIMENT 
STATIONS. 
We are equally proud of our record with the Stations. 
There may at times have been an occasional chance analysis 
which was not quite what we would have liked, and not fairly 
representative of our goods, but on the grand average, year 
in and year out, our record has been something to be justly 
proud of. 
III. SAME FAMILY MANAGEMENT FOR THREE 
GENERATIONS. 
Not only have the Mapeses continued successively in the 
business for three generations—grandfather, father and son— 
but the Lanes, who have been associated with the Mapeses 
from the start, follow the same identical record in the business, 
grandfather, father and son, successively. Could there be a 
better guarantee than this family management, with the ele¬ 
ment of family pride deeply involved, that everything has 
been done and will continue to be done to make the Mapes 
Manures as good as the knowledge of fertilizer science per¬ 
mits for the crops for which they are intended. 
The Mapes Manures have never stood still but have been 
constantly improving as the knowledge of scientific plant 
feeding broadened and progressed. 
“The Mapes business had its inception in the scientific 
research and experiments of Professor James Jay Mapes, and 
scientific research and experiment, coupled with the most 
exact practical experience, have been the dominating factors 
in the Mapes business to the present day.”—The Florida 
Grower. 
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