they should be used at as great a distance of time 
between each other as circumstances will admit 
of, and the latter not long before the sowing.— 
Bones form one of the most valuable manures for 
turnips on all light soils, on account of their 
portable and stimulating character; they are 
least useful on a gravelly or loamy soil. They 
have converted barren moor lands into rich, fer- 
tile, and productive farms, luxuriating in every 
valuable product of the earth. Their value is 
beyond all praise. The Hast Riding of Yorkshire 
affords a specimen of what they have effected, 
and they require only to be known to be ex- 
tensively applied. In many cases, they are used 
alone; in others, in conjunction with farm-yard 
manure, with ashes, and with lime. Ashes are 
sometimes drilled with them as a substitute, by 
diminishing the quantity of the bones. Lime is 
a valuable auxiliary on old-going land, or soil 
which has been long under cultivation. On 
peaty soils, having a substratum of sand, they 
have produced wonderful crops, by supplying 
them with the necessary animal matter. The 
quantity varies from twelve to thirty bushels per 
acre. Sixteen bushels per acre will produce a 
fair crop on average soils, and some farmers say 
that more than that quantity is waste. It is 
desirable to mix them with a quantity of ashes 
when they are drilled in the above quantity. 
This facilitates the early progress of the plants, 
and supports them until the bones become avail- 
able. English bones are generally preferred to 
foreign; but, from experiments made by the 
writer, he prefers foreign to English, and also to 
recent bones; for, although the latter have more 
of their juices than the former, the former 
sooner decompose, and the fat and animal juices 
require considerable chemical changes before 
they are available as food for the plants. A 
mixture might be judicious; but he has not 
tried if, nor is he aware of trial having been 
made.—Other manures of a miscellaneous cha- 
racter are used for turnips. Pigeons’ dung is 
most valuable; rape-dust has been used success- 
fully; and animalised carbon has also been ad- 
vantageously employed.” 
Some of the most important special manures 
which have been experimented with are guano, 
the nitrate of potash, the nitrate of soda, pou- 
drette, and Poittevin’s manure; but the com- 
TURNIP. 
parative values of these, and of bones, rape dust, 
animalised carbon, and other peculiar substances, 
both in their immediate action on turnips, and 
in their power over whole rotations, are glanced 
at in the section on special manures in the ar- 
ticle Manure; and the results of many experi- 
ments are stated both there and in some of the 
articles on the several substances themselves. 
The joint use of several special manures in com- 
bination with one another or with farm-yard 
manure, especially if conducted with intelligent 
regard to the precise chemical condition of the 
soil, and to the precise aggregate wants of the 
several crops of a rotation, is far more fitted to 
achieve a high order of results than the wisest 
possible single use of any one special manure; 
and even when employed with reference to the 
mere turnip crop itself, and without any very 
intelligent application of the doctrines of agri- 
cultural chemistry, it has been found to act with 
very high efficiency. The following tabular view 
of the particulars of a comparative trial of vari- 
ous compounds, by Mr. Thomas Page, at Merriden 
in Surrey, is both curious and instructive, and 
may suggest more useful hints than could be 
conveyed by an elaborate disquisition. The soil 
on which the trial took place was a light blow- 
ing sand, very shallow, containing many rubbly 
surface stones, and immediately incumbent on 
sandstone rock, and lying at a considerable ele- 
vation and much exposed; and was broken up 
from grass as deeply as the plough could go, and 
cross-ploughed in April, and grubbed and cleaned 
with Biddel’s scarifier and Grant’s lever horse- 
rake; and drill-sown, at distances of 18 inches, 
with the manures and the red round variety of 
turnip seed, in the latter part of July; and all 
parts of it were equal in quality, and were 
equally treated. “On all the portions where 
dissolved bones were used, the plants came for- 
warder to the hoe than where they were not 
used; but beyond this there was not much per- 
ceptible difference in the appearance of the dif- 
ferent parts, until from a month to 6 weeks 
had elapsed, when No. 7 began to grow less ra- 
pidly than the rest. At the end of between 7 
and 8 weeks No. 1 began to fall off; and in a 
few days No. 2 followed. Further than this dif- 
ference, the eye could hardly detect where the 
separation of each kind of dressing took place.” 
