TURNIPS AND FERTILITY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8339, 27 January 1913, Page 2

TURNIPS AND FERTILITY

The turnip is a hardy biennial; its root is hard and woody in the wild state, but cultivation has converted it into the useful vegetable it is, though bad cultivation and unsuitable conditions allow it to revert at once to its uncultivated state. Turnips' depend mainly upon an abundant supply of manure and water. Turnips aro sown in Scotland (says tho Dundee " Advertiser ") on one-seventh of the total arable area, and are sown on light, and strong land, on thin land and on deep, on every kind of arable farm. No matter what may bo its climatic aspect, soil, or situation, turnips are sown. It is an expensive and precarious crop, subject to insect attacks, to finger-and-toc, to drought; frost, mildew, etc. Denmark, for example, grows only one acre of turnips, niaugels, kohlrabi, and other root crops for every five acres of corn, and yet Denmark is not a graingrowing country. If turnips are not grown, how is the fertility of the soil to be maintained ? Denmark gives the answer: Whero we have 7000 or 8000 acres of tares, Denmark lias nine times as much. If, instead of growing eight to ten tons of roots which only give ono ton of feeding material, a mixture of tares, peas, beans, and oats were grown for summer feeding, and the pasture that would bo grazed were made into hay for winter feed, how much more stock could bo kept! Tho land would improve in condition, as turnips scourgo it, while tho tares, peas, beans, etc., would enrich it and keep it free from weeds.