scraped and washed tubers cut into small pieces and steeped in water; and a spirit is distilled from mashed potatoes fermented, so as to change a portion of the starch into sugar. In general it is found that three and a half bushels of potatoes afford the same quantity of spirit as one of malt.

4868. Among extraordinary applications of the potatoe, may be mentioned cleaning woollens, and making wine and ardent spirit.

4869. Cleaning woollens. The refuse of potatoes used in making starch when taken from the sieve, possesses the property of cleansing woollen cloths, without hurting their color; and the water decanted from the starch powder is excellent for cleansing silks, without the smallest injury to the color.

4870. Wine, of considerable quality, may be made from frosted potatoes, if not so much frosted as to have become soft and waterish. The potatoes must be crushed or bruised with a mallet, or put into a cider press. A bushel must have ten gallons of water, prepared by boiling it, mixed with half a pound of hops, and half a pound of common white ginger. This water, after having boiled for about half an hour, must be poured upon the bruised potatoes, into a tub or vessel suited to the quantity to be made. After standing in this mixed state for three days, yeast must be added to ferment the liquor. When the fermentation has subsided, the liquor must be drawn off, as fine as possible, into a cask, adding half a pound of raw sugar for every gallon. After it has remained in the cask for three months, it will be ready for use.

4871. Ardent spirit. Potatoes that have been injured by the frost, produce a much greater quantity of spirit, and of a much finer quality than those that are fresh; they require a proportion of malt-wash to promote the fermentation. About one-fourth part of malt-worts, or wash, ought to be fermented at least six hours before the potatoe wash is joined to it; otherwise the potatoe wash having an aptitude to ferment, will be ripe for the still before the malt-wash is ready; hence the effect will be, to generate an acid which renders the spirit coarse, and, when diluted with water, of a milky or bluish color. When the spirit is strong, the acid is held in solution; but appears as above, when diluted with water. (Farmer's Mag. vol. xvii. p. 325.)

4872. In the application of potatoes as food for live-stock, they are often joined with hay, straw, chaff, and other similar matters, and have been found useful in many cases, especially in the later winter months, as food for horses, cows, and other sorts of livestock. With these substances, as well as in combination with other materials, as bean or barley-meal and pollard, they are used in the fattening of neat cattle, sheep and hogs. Potatoes are much more nutritive when boiled; they were formerly cooked in this way, but are now very generally steamed, especially in the north. The practice has been carried to the greatest extent by Curwen in feeding horses. He gives to each horse, daily, one and a half stone of potatoes mixed with a tenth of cut straw. One hundred and twenty stones of potatoes require two and a quarter bushels of coals to steam them. An acre of potatoes, he considers, goes as far in this way as four of hay. Von Thaer found them, when given to live-stock, produce more manure than any other food : 100 lbs. of potatoes producing 66 lbs, of manure of the very best description. baking of potatoes in an oven has also been tried with success. (Comm. Board of Agriculture, vol. iv.); but the process seems too expensive. They are also given raw to stock of every description, to horses and hogs washed, but not washed to cows or oxen. Washing was formerly a disagreeable and tedious business, but is now rendered an easy matter, whether on a large or small scale, by the use of the washing machine.

The

4873. Frosted potatoes may be applied to various useful purposes, for food by thawing in cold water, or being pared, then thawed and boiled with a little salt. Salt, or saltpetre, chaff, or bruised oats, boiled with them, will render them fit food for cattle, swine, poultry, &c. Starch, and paste for weavers, bookbinders, and shoemakers, may be made from them when too sweet to be rendered palatable, and also an ardent spirit, from hydrometer proof to 10 per cent. over proof.

Some

4874. The diseases of the potatoe are chiefly the scab, the worm, and curl. The scab, or ulcerated surface of the tubers, has never been satisfactorily accounted for. attributing it to the ammonia of horse-dung, others to alkali, and some to the use of coal ashes. Change of seed, and of ground, are the only resources known at present for this malady. The worm and grub both attack the tuber, and the same preventative is recommended. The only serious disease of the potatoe is the curl, and this is now ascertained to be produced by the too great concentration of the sap in the tuber, and this concentration, or thickening, is prevented by early taking up. This discovery was first made by the farmers near Edinburgh observing that seed potatoes procured from the moors, or elevated cold ground, in the internal parts of the country, never suffered from the curl, and it consequently became a practice, every three or four years, to procure a change of seed from these districts. On enquiry, it was found, that the potatoes in these upland grounds continued in a growing state till the haulm was blackened by the first frosts of October. They were then taken up, when, of course, they could not

be ripe. Subsequent experiments, which will be found detailed in The Farmer's Magazine, and Caledonian and London Horticultural Transactions, have firmly established the fact, that the curl is prevented by using unripe seed, therefore the farmer ought to select his seed stock a fortnight or three weeks before he takes up the general crop, as already recommended. It is also a safe practice frequently to change the seed, and also to change the variety.

4875. Sherrif, an ingenious speculator and yet practical agriculturist, is of opinion that there are only two causes for the curled disorder in potatoes. The first is excessive seed bearing, that is, carrying great quantities of plums or apples; from the effects of which, if the plant be not too far advanced in life, it may recover for a time, by removing it to a shady or upland situation. The second cause is time or old age, which never fails ultimately to bring the curled or shrivelled disorder, followed by death, on the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. An old decaying oak is an instance of the curled or shrivelled state of trees from age, as is "the lean and slippered pantaloon" of the curled disorder from old age in the human species. An apple tree, again, that has carried extraordinary crops of fruit within a few years, is often in the state of a potatoe curled from excessive apple bearing; so is a hart, or a buck, immediately after the rutting season. Both the tree and animals will recover their health and vigor for a time, unless they are too old, or have gone to the very greatest and last extremity in seed bearing and venery, in which cases the effects will be the same as those of time, viz. death. It is not then to over-ripening the tubers that the curled disorder in potatoes is to be attributed, but to time and seed-bearing, that is, carrying great quantities of plums or apples.

SECT. II. The Turnip.- Brassica Rapa, L. Tetrad. Siliq. L. and Crucifereæ, J. Rave, Fr.; Rübe, Ger. ; and Rapa. Ital.

4876. The turnip is a native of Britain, but in its wild state is not to be recognized by ordinary observations from wild mustard. It was cultivated as food for cattle by the Romans; and has been sown for the same purpose in the fields of Germany and the low countries from time immemorial. When they were introduced in this country, as a field plant, is unknown; but it is probable turnips would be found in some gardens of convents from the time of the Romans; and it is certain that they were in field culture before the middle of the seventeenth century, though then, and for a long time afterwards, in a very inferior and ineffectual manner. It has been stated that turnips were introduced from Hanover in George I.'s time; but so far from this having been the case, George II. caused an abstract of the Norfolk system of turnip husbandry to be drawn up for the use of his subjects in Hanover. (Campbell's Polit. Survey, &c. vol. iii. p. 80.) The introduction of improved turnip culture into the husbandry of Britain, Brown observes," occasioned one of those revolutions in rural art which are constantly occurring among husbandmen; and, though the revolution came on with slow and gradual steps, yet it may now be viewed as completely and thoroughly established. Before the introduction of this root, it was impossible to cultivate light soils successfully, or to devise suitable rotations for cropping them with advantage. It was likewise a difficult task to support live-stock through the winter and spring months; and as for feeding and preparing cattle and sheep for market during these inclement seasons, the practice was hardly thought of, and still more rarely attempted, unless where a full stock of hay was provided, which only happened in very few instances. The benefits derived from turnip husbandry are, therefore, of great magnitude. Light soils are now cultivated with profit and facility; abundance of food is provided for man and beast; the earth is turned to the uses for which it is physically calculated; and, by being suitably cleaned with this preparatory crop, a bed is provided for grass seeds, wherein they florish and prosper with greater vigor than after any other preparation." (Treatise on Rural Affairs.)

4877. Turnips and clover, it is elsewhere observed," are the two main pillars of the best courses of British husbandry; they have contributed more to preserve and augment the fertility of the soil for producing grain · to enlarge and improve our breeds of cattle and sheep and to afford a regular supply of butcher's meat all the year, than any other crops; and they will probably be long found vastly superior, for extensive cultivation, to any of the rivals which have often been opposed to them in particular situations. Though turnips were long cultivated in Norfolk before they were known in the northern counties, yet it is an undoubted fact that their culture was first brought to perfection in Roxburghshire, Berwickshire, and Northumberland, and chiefly through the exertions of Dawson, of Frogden, in the first named county, and Bailey, of Chillingham, in the latter.

4878. The varieties of turnip grown by farmers may be arranged as whites and yellows.

4879. Of white turnips, by far the best and most generally cultivated, is the globe; but there are also the green topped, having the bulb tinged; greenish and purple topped, with the bulb reddish, which, though they do not produce so large a crop as the globe or oval, stand the winter better, and the red topped, it is said, will keep till February. The pudding, or tankard turnip, has a white bulb which rises from eight to twelve inches high, standing almost wholly above ground. It is less prolific than any of the others, and more liable to be attacked by frost.

4880. Of yellow turnips, there are the field yellow, which is more hardy than the globe, and answers well for succeeding that variety in spring; and the ruta baga, or Swedish

turnip, which may be preserved for consumption till June. The Siberian turnip has a bulb and a branchy top, but both of inferior quality. It is a hybrid between a white ruta baga and field cabbage, or between rape and cabbage.

4881. New varieties are obtained by selection and by counter impregnation; but in either case the greatest care is requisite to keep the plants at least a furlong from any others of the brassica tribe likely to flower at the same time, otherwise the progeny will certainly be hybridized.

4882. The choice of sorts may be considered as limited to the white globe, yellow, and Swedish, according as early, middling, or late supplies are wanted. No other varieties are grown by the best farmers.

4883. In the choice of seed the farmer must rely on the integrity of the seed-dealer, as it is impossible to discover from the grains whether they will turn out true to their kinds. Turnip-seed requires to be frequently changed; and the best is generally procured from Norfolk and Northumberland. The Norfolk seed, Forsyth observes, is sent

to most parts of the kingdom, and even to Ireland: but after two years it degenerates; so that those who wish to have turnips in perfection, should procure it fresh every year from Norwich, and they will find their account in so doing. For, from its known reputation, many of the London seedsmen sell, under that character, seed raised in the vicinity of the metropolis, which is much inferior in quality.

4884. Turnip-seed will grow of any age, if it has been carefully preserved; that which is new comes up first, and therefore it is not a bad plan to mix new and old together,as a means of securing a braird against drought or the fly. Whether plants from new or old seed are most secure from the depredations of the fly, is perhaps a question which cannot be easily determined, even by experiments; for concomitant circumstances are frequently so much more operative and powerful as to render the difference between them, if there be any, imperceptible. It is, however, known to every practical man, that new seed vegetates several days before the old, and more vigorously; and it is equally well known that the healthy and vigorous plants escape the fly, when the stinted and sickly seldom or never escape it. Hence it would seem, that new seed, cæteris paribus, is more secure from the fly than old.

4885. The soil for turnips should always be of a light description. In favorable seasons very good crops may be raised on any soil; but from the difficulty of removing them, and the injury which the soil must sustain either in that operation, or in eating them on the spot with sheep, they never on such soils can be considered as beneficial to the farmer. Turnips cannot be advantageously cultivated on wet tenacious soils, but are grown on all comparatively dry soils under all the variations of our climate. dry loams, and all soils of a looser texture, managed according to the best courses of cropping, they enter into the rotation to the extent of a fourth, a sixth, or an eighth part of the land in tillage; and even on clayey soils they are frequently cultivated, though on a smaller scale, to be eaten by cattle, for the purpose of augmenting and enriching the manure, into which the straw of corn is converted.

On

4886. The climate most desirable for the turnip is cool and temperate. This was long ago noticed by Pliny, and it is so obvious on the continent that it admits of no dispute. Von Thaer observes, that the turnips grown on the fields of Germany seldom exceed half a pound in weight, and that all his care could not raise one beyond fourteen pounds. In France and Italy they are still less. A rapid climate is equally disadvantageous to the turnip; and they are accordingly found of no size in Russia, Sweden, and many parts of North America. Even turnips grown in the southern counties of England, in the same excellent manner as in Northumberland, never equal the size of those grown in the latter county, or further north, or in Ireland.

4887. In the preparation of the soil, the first ploughing is given with a deep furrow soon after harvest, usually in the direction of the former ridges; though, if the soil be dry, it is of little consequence in what direction. As soon as the spring seed-time is over, a second ploughing is given across the former, and the harrows, and, if necessary the rollers, are then set to work to clean and pulverize the soil. All the weed-roots that are brought to the surface are carefully gathered into heaps, and either burnt on the ground, or carried off to form a compost, usually with lime. The land is then generally ploughed a third time, again harrowed well, sometimes also rolled, and the weedroots picked out as before. Unless land is in a much worse state, in regard to cleanness and pulverization, than it usually is after turnips have been some time a rotation crop, no more ploughings are necessary. It is next laid up in ridgelets, from twentyseven to thirty inches wide, either with the common swing-plough, or one with two mould-boards, which forms two sides of a ridgelet at once. Well-rotted dung, at the rate of twelve or fifteen tons per acre, is then carried to the field, and dropped from the cart in the middle one of three intervals, in such a quantity as may serve for that and the interval on each side of it. The dung is then divided equally among the three, by a person who goes before the spreaders, one of whom, for each interval, spreads it with a small three-pronged fork along the bottom. The plough immediately follows, and, reversing the ridgelets, forms new ones over the dung; and the drill-barrow, commonly one that sows two drills at once, drawn by one horse, deposits the seed as fast as the new drills are formed. This drill-machine is usually furnished with two small rollers; one

that goes before the sowing apparatus, and levels the pointed tops of the ridgelets, and another that follows for the purpose of compressing the soil and covering the seed. From the time the dung is carted to the ground, until the seed is deposited, the several operations should go on simultaneously; the dung is never allowed to lie uncovered to be dried by the sun and wind; and the new ridgelets are sown as soon as formed, that the seed may find moisture to accelerate its vegetation. (Supp. Encyc. Brit. art. Agr.)

4888. Manure may be considered as essential to turnips. Turnip-land, Brown observes, cannot be made too rich, for, in fact, the weight of the crop depends in a great measure upon its condition in this respect. Manure is sometimes applied to the crop which immediately precedes the turnips; but, to answer well in this way, the land must naturally be of an excellent quality. In other cases, where the land is in good order, it is laid on the stubble previous to the first ploughing. But generally the dung is laid on immediately before the seed is sown; the ground is formed into drills or ridges, and the manure spread in the intervals between them; the drills are then split by the plough, the earth on each side covers the dung, forms a drill where the interval formerly was, and furnishes a bed for the seed. These operations are now so well understood, that it is unnecessary to describe them more particularly. Farm-yard manure is the kind generally applied it should be well rotted, and not less than twelve or fifteen tons allowed to each acre.

4889. The time of sowing the several varieties is somewhat different; the Swedish should be put in the earliest, and then the yellow, both of them in the month of May. But as these kinds are much less extensively cultivated than the globe, the month of June is the principal seed time; and after the first week of July a full crop is not to be expected in the northern parts of the island. But in the southern counties turnips are frequently sown in August after pease, wheat, or tares. The crop, however, is always light and only fit to be eaten down by sheep in spring, or to send their tops to market as greens. After a crop of hotspur pease sold green for the London market, the land is well cleared with the horse-hoe, and upon once ploughing, turnips are sown; and just before the young plants are observed to be cutting the ground, the field receives a light top-dressing of soot-ashes, or the most portable manure that can be conveniently procured. This dressing, upon frequent trial, has been found to have a very good effect in preserving the infant turnip plant from the depredations of the fly.

4890. The preparation of turnip-seed for sowing, by steeping in the drainings of dunghills and other similar matters, has been recommended as a likely mode to prevent the fly; but it is not found to have this effect, and is never followed. Sometimes the following mode of preparation is adopted; half new and half old seed are mixed together; then half is taken and steeped in water for three or four hours; afterwards both steeped and unsteeped seed are mixed and immediately sown. The object of this preparation is to obtain four different brairds or risings of the seed, which is supposed to give four chances of escaping the fly which attacks the infant plants, instead of one. Another mode is to join to the above radish-seed, new and old, steeped in the above manner, it being found that the fly prefers the radish to the turnip. The most common precaution, however, as to the fly, is to sow thick, or to mix the seed with soot, lime, or ashes.

4891. The quantity of seed is usually from two to three pounds per acre. 4892. The mode of sowing in all the best cultivated districts is on raised drills. Not only the broad-cast, but even rows on a flat surface are rejected by all who understand. the culture of the turnip. This plant never does any good in the field till its roots reach the dung; and therefore the only mode to ensure a heavy crop, is to put the dung immediately beneath the row. This is only to be done by the ridgelet, or raised drill system, as already explained in treating of preparing the soil. The drill used may be either the hand-drill, which sows one row at a time, and is pushed along by a woman, or by the horse-drill, which sows two rows. The latter from its weight and breadth performs the work with greater accuracy, and much more effectually than can be done by any hand machine. So much has been written to prove the disadvantages of sowing broadcast, and the benefits of the drill system, that the subject may be considered as settled in favor of the latter, even in the case of midsummer sowing after early pease gathered

green.

4893. The after culture may, in some cases, require to commence with watering by Young's excellent machine (2564.), though this has by no means found its way among farmers, and is only likely to be occasionally necessary. Some commence by strewing soot or lime along the row to annoy the fly, or sharp sand, ashes, or barley awns, to ward off the slug. In general, however, these practices are confined to gardens or cultivators on a very small scale, and like many others they are much oftener talked of than put in practice. The turnip farmer, as soon as the plants have put forth the rough leaf, or sooner if annual weeds have got the start of them, runs a horse-hoe between the ridgelets and cuts up the weeds on each side, almost close to the rows of the turnip plants, clearing out the bottom of the interval at the same time. The hand-hoers are always set to work as

soon as possible after, and the plants are left about nine inches distant; the Swedish kind somewhat closer. If the ground has been well prepared, and the plants are allowed to get too large, three experienced hoers go over an acre a day. A few days after this, a small swing plough, drawn by one horse, enters the interval between the rows, and, taking a furrow-slice off each side, forms a smaller ridgelet in the middle. If the annuals still rise in great abundance, the horse-hoe may be employed again, otherwise the next operation is to go over them a second time with the hand-hoe, when the intermediate ridgelet is levelled. Sometimes a third hoeing must be given, but that is done very expeditiously. When no more manual labor is required, a small plough with two mouldboards is employed to lay up the earth to the sides of the plants, leaving the ridgelets of the same form as when sown, which finishes the process. Large fields throughout their whole extent, dressed in this manner, are left as clean and as pleasant to the eye as the best cultivated garden. The horse and hand-hoeing, in ordinary cases, may cost about fifteen shillings per acre. Where the soil is perfectly dry, and has been well prepared, the small plough has of late been laid aside by many farmers, and the space between the rows is kept clean by the horse and hand-hoe alone; but if the soil be either wet from springs, or so flat as not easily to part with surface water, it is still considered proper to earth up the roots as the concluding part of the process; and it is always useful to plough between the ridges when couch-grass and other weeds have not been completely picked out before the land was sown. The gathering of the weeds, the spreading of the dung, and the hand-hoeing, are almost always performed by women and boys and girls.

b

567

4894. A summary of turnip culture in drills, is given in The Berwickshire Survey, by a copper-plate. In this (fig. 567.) is first shown the ridgelets with the dung spread between (a), then the dung covered, and the drills formed (6); rolled and the seed sown (c); the young plants with the earth hoed away from them by a curved coulter hoe (d); the plants further advanced, covering the soil with their leaves, and enjoying the dung with their roots (e); and full grown, the leaves being cut off in November, to be eaten green, and the bulbs left for winter use. (ƒ)

4895. The turnip crop is generally taken and consumed at the same time. They are consumed either on the spot where they grow; on grassfields; in fold-yards; or in feeding-houses; but the far greater part, wherever they

are extensively cultivated, by sheep. The price per acre when sold depends not only upon the weight of the crop, but also on the mode of its consumption.

4896. When eaten by sheep in the place of their growth, turnips are lotted off, by means of hurdles or nets, that they may be regularly consumed. When the first allowance is nearly eaten up, the bottoms or shells are picked out of the ground, by means of a twopronged blunt hook adapted to the purpose; and then another portion of the field is taken in, by shifting the hurdles or nets, and so on regularly until the whole are finished; the cleared part of the field being usually left accessible as a drier bed for the sheep, and that they may pick up what shells remained when a new portion of the field was taken in.

4897. The turnips required for other modes of consumption are usually drawn out, at regular intervals, before the sheep are put upon the field; unless the soil be so poor as to need all the benefit of their dung and treading, in which case, the whole are consumed where they grow; or so rich as to endanger the succeeding crops, by eating any part of the turnips on the ground. In the latter very rare instance, the whole crop is carried to be consumed elsewhere, as must always be done, if the soil be naturally too wet for sheep feeding. In wet weather, when sheep ought not to be allowed to lie on the turnip field, it becomes necessary to carry the turnips to a grass field; and store sheep, not requiring to be so highly fed, frequently cat their turnips on such fields, as well as rearSE S