f turnips, he quotes several
instances of the successful preparation of land in the autumn--breaking
up, harrowing, cross-ploughing, drilling, and dunging--for the turnip
crop, and he adds the following opinion:--

"Were such modes of culture adopted in the south of England, I have
no doubt certain and abundant crops of turnips would be raised, in
spite of droughts and insects; and the slovenly practice of
broad-cast culture would then give way to the more scientific mode of
the drill system."--(Vol. iii. p. 747.)

In the following passage he notices a curious but generally received fact
regarding the effect of different quantities of bones; but we quote
chiefly on account of another observation at its close, which may be
interesting to our southern readers:--

"I have tried to raise turnips with different quantities of
bone-dust, varying from twelve, sixteen, twenty, and twenty-four
bushels to the imperial acre, and have found the crop improved up to
sixteen bushels; but any quantity beyond that, even to twenty-four
bushels, produced no greater effect on the turnips in the same field,
and on the same sort of soil, than sixteen bushels. Nay, more than
this, my late agricultural preceptor, Mr George Brown, when he farmed
Hetton Steads in Northumberland, raised as good crops of turnips as
sixteen bushels of bone-dust, with only eight bushels of bone-dust,
combined with an indefinite quantity of sifted dry coal-ashes; and
yet eight bushels of bone-dust, or an indefinite quantity of
coal-ashes applied separately, produced a very poor crop of turnips.
It is therefore unnecessary, in so far as the crop of turnips is
concerned, to sow more than sixteen bushels of bone-dust alone, or
eight bushels with coal-ashes, or perhaps street-manure. Both
coal-ashes and street-manure, when proposed to be used with
bone-dust, should be kept dry under cover, and sifted free of large
lumps. * * *

"The very best mode of using bone-dust in small quantity, both for
increasing the fertility of the soil and rearing a good crop, is to
sow the seed along with it in drills already manured with farm-yard
dung. The bone-dust secures a good and quick braird of the plant, and
the dung supports it powerfully afterwards. This plan I would
recommend to be pursued, particularly in England, on the land
pre