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Turnips

is generally mixed along with the fermented pota- | seed; this may be performed by drilling machines toes in about equal proportions.

Bookbinders also may use this paste, alum being mixed to assist the strength of the composition.

And it may be beneficially used by paper stainers and upholsterers, when made up with a mixture of flour and alum.

When potatoes are so penetrated with frost that they have become quite soft, they are useless for man or beast, but make excellent manure for light, sharp soils, and for this purpose are worth about one-fifth or sixth of their original value. In places where it is a great object to get straw turned into dung, the value of the frosted potato is still greater, as it assists the farmer in that operation.

To make Starch from Frosted Potatoes.

Potatoes much frosted will make very good starch, though it is a shade darker in color. All coarse clothes requiring to be stiffened, where whiteness is no object, may be done with starch made from potatoes greatly penetrated with frost.

The best method of making potatoes into starch is to grate them down into water, then to take out all the refuse with the hand, and next to strain the whole of the water in which the potatoes have been grated through a thin cloth, rather coarse, or fine sieve, and afterwards frequently putting on and pouring off water until it comes clear from the starch, which is always allowed to settle or fall to the bottom of the vessel in which the operation is performed. An experiment was tried with a few potatoes that were put out to frost.

They were grated down and made into starch powder. The produce of the fresh potato weighed 876 grains, while that of the frosted was only 412, being less than half the quantity.

The refuse of the potato, when taken from the sieve, possesses the property of cleansing woollen cloths without hurting their colors, and the water decanted from the starch powder is excellent for cleansing silks without the smallest injury to their color. In making hair-powder it has long been used, and is therefore well known.

Turnips.

The benefits derived from turnip husbandry are of great magnitude; light soils are 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 flourish and prosper with greater vigor than after any other preparation.

To prepare the Ground.

The first ploughing is given immediately after harvest, or as soon as the wheat seed is finished, either in length or across the field, as circumstances may seem to require. In this state the ground remains till the oat seed is finished, when a second ploughing is given to it, usually in a contrary direction to the first. It is then repeatedly harrowed, often rolled between the harrowings, and every particle of root-weeds carefully picked off with the hand; a third ploughing is then bestowed, and the other operations are repeated. In this stage, if the ground has not been very foul, the seed process generally commences, but often a fourth ploughing, sometimes a fifth is necessary before the ground is sufficiently clean.

Less labor, however, is necessary now than in former times, when a more regular mode of cropping was commonly followed. To sow the Seed. of different sizes and constructions, though all acting on the same principle. A machine drawn by a horse in a pair of shafts, sows two drills at a time and answers extremely well, where the ground is flat, and the drills properly made up. The weight of the machine insures a regularity of sowing hardly to be gained by those of a different size and construction. From two to three pounds of seed are sown upon the acre, though the smallest of these quantities will give many more plants in ordinary seasons than are necessary; but as the seed is not an expensive article the greater part of farmers incline to sow thick, which both prevides against the danger of part of the seed perishing, and gives the young plants an advantage at the outset.

Turnips are sown from the beginning to the end of June; but the second and third weeks of the month are, by judicious farmers, accounted the most proper time. Some people have sown as early as May, and with advantage; but these early fields are apt to run to seed before winter, especially if the autumn be favorable to vegetation. As a general rule it may be laid down that the earliest sowings should be on the latest soils; plants on such soils are often long before they make any great progress, and, in the end, may be far behind those in other situations, which were much later sown. The turnip plant, indeed, does not thrive rapidly till its roots reach the dung, and the previous nourishment afforded them is often so scanty as to stunt them altogether before they get so far.

Cleaning Process.

The first thing to be done in this process is to run a horse-hoe, called a scraper, along the intervals, keeping at such a distance from the young plants that they shall not be injured; this operation destroys all the annual weeds which have sprung up, and leaves the plants standing in regular stripes or rows. The handhoeing then commences, by which the turnips are all singled out, at a distance of from eight to twelve inches, and the redundant ones drawn into the spaces between the rows. The singling out of the young plants is an operation of great importance, for an error committed in this process can hardly be afterwards rectified.

Boys and girls are always employed as hoers; but a steady and trusty man-servant is usually set over them to see that the work is properly executed.

In eight or ten days, or such a length of time as circumstances may require, a horse-hoe of a different construction from the scraper is used.

This, in fact, is generally a small plough, of the same kind with that commonly wrought, but of smaller dimensions. By this implement, the earth is pared away from the sides of the drills, and a sort of new ridge formed in the middle of the former interval. The hand-hoers are again set to work, and every weed and superfluous turnip is cut up; afterwards the horse-hoe is employed to separate the earth, which it formerly threw into the furrows, and lay it back to the sides of the drills. On dry lands this is done by the scraper, but where the least tendeney to moisture prevails, the small plough is used, in order that the furrows may be perfectly cleaned out. This latter mode, indeed, is very generally practised.

To cultivate the Yellow Turnip.

This variety, as now cultivated in the field, is quite different from the yellow garden turnip, being larger in size, containing more juice, or nu. The next part of the process is the sowing of the tritive substance, much easier cultivated, and preserving its power till the middle of May, when the grass-season may be expected. Upon ordinary soils it is superior to ruta baga, because it will grow to a considerable weight, where the other would be stunted or starved; and it stands the frost equally well. No farmer who keeps stock to any extent should be without it. The mode of culture required is in every respect similar to what is stated concerning common turnips, with these exceptions, that earlier sowing is necessary, and that the plants need not be set out so wide as they do not swell to such a size.

Ruta Baga or Swedish Turnip.

The process of management is precisely the same with that of turnips, with this addition, that more dung is required, and that seed-time ought to be three or four weeks earlier. Rich soil, however, is required for this article; for it will not grow to any size worthwhile, on soils of middling quality, whatever quality of dung may be required.

Ruta baga is of great advantage in the feeding of horses, either when given raw or boiled, or with broken corn. If a sufficient quality were cultivated a great deal of grain might be saved, while the health and condition of the working stock would be greatly invigorated and augmented. An evening feed of this nutritious article would be of incalculable benefit; most horses are fond even of the common turnip in a raw state; and it is a subject well worthy of every farmer's attention, whether it would not be for his interest to raise these esculents in such a quantity as to serve them during the long period when grass cannot be obtained. That the health of the animals would thereby be benefited is unquestionable; and the saving of grain would greatly exceed the trouble occasioned by furnishing a daily supply of these roots. To destroy the Fly on Turnips.

Lime sown by the hand, or distributed by a machine, is an infallible protection to turnips against the ravages of the fly. It should be applied as soon as the turnips come up, and in the same daily rotation in which they were sown.

The lime should be slaked immediately before it is used; if the air be not sufficiently moist to render that operation unnecessary.