THE RURAL WORLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 499, 11 September 1912, Page 3

THE RURAL WORLD.

TURNIP CULTIVATION., At the Wereroa experimental farm special importance has always been attached to the cultivation of roots as supplementary food for stock. _ The soil—a rich friable loam—lends itself admirably to such crops. While a large area of roots i 9 annually required in connection with the farm economy, experiments are periodically conducted to the varieties that are offered to the farmer as well as to demonstrate the best manurial treat 1 ment and management for the environment. The crops this year have proved very successful, and the experiments conducted have conveyed several important lessons. The season has not been a favourable one for the cultivation of roots, largely by reason of the continued stormy weather which prevailed during the early stages of growth. This quite prevented a proper system uf aftercultivation, and thus allowed the weeds to make headway. The soil also became sodden, so that only the strongest plants survived. These advantages had not. the. prejudicial effect on the crop one might have supposed. This was largely due to the thorough cultivation the ground received piror to planting, and to the fact that six weeks before the seed was sown lime and a portion of the manure was applied, thus counteracting the natural acidity of the land and ensuring immediately available plant food for the seed. The effect of this thorough preparation of the seed bed is now plainly evident, for, notwithstanding the impossibility of effective after-cultivation, the crop is a splendid one—in fact, one of the best that has been produced on this farm, even including those crown when vkgin soil was available. The land on which the swede tests were conducted was ploughed the previous year from lea. It was then sown, part in wheat, part in oats, and part in potatoes. Subsequently a catch crop of barley and tares was grown. After this crop was partly fed off a further growth was ploughed in about the month of August, and the land was disced and harrowed in September. At this time two and a half hundredweight of lime with one and a half basic slag was sown with a broadcast drill on all but one chain wide running the full length of the field, a distance of twenty chains. At the end of October the final cultivation was given and sowing was commened in the first week of November. The seed was sown with a ridging drill, one and a half hundredweight of superphosphate being sown with the seed. This manure was applied uver the whole of the field, including the strip of a chain wide which did not receive the lime or slag. While an excellent growth resulted from the soil which received the basic slag and lime six weeks before sowing, the growth on the land which only received superphosphate with the seed was poor and patchy—in fact, was a distinct failure. I'his chain strip, by the way, was a fair sample of the soil of the whole field.

The most prominent variety of the swedes was the New Empire. It is a well shaped and well textured tuber. At Wereroa it has proved a great cropper, the yield in these tests being estimated at 70 tons to the acre. There was no appearance whatever in the variety of blight or other disease. The next best variety was Magnum Bonum, the yield from which was calculated at 55 tons to frtin aero