TURNIPS IN SCOTLAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 22 April 1913, Page 6

TURNIPS IN SCOTLAND.

The Scottish farmer is being brought to task for growing turnips too exten sively. An authority of one of the demonstration farms in Scotland says : "Turnips are sown in Scotland on one-seventh of the total arable area, and are sown in light and .strong i land, on thin land and on deep, on I every kind of arable favm.l No matter J what may be its climatic Aspect, soil > or situation, t,urnips are sown.. It is 3 [ an expensive and precarious crop, sub- J ject to insect attacks, to finger ane j toe drought, to frost and mildew. I Denmark, for example, sows only acre of turnips, mangels, kohl r kj"* and other root crops for ' acr* s of gram, and yet Der a- gram-growmg are not grown h o> - 3 ; he the soil to be , nai »t*inedP. Denmark g " 80T "-"^vor: Where we have 7000 °\. ,j acres of tares, Denmark has «*e tinier as much. If, instead of growing eight to ten tons of roots which only give one ton of feeding material, a mixture of tares, peas, and oats were grown for summer feeding, and the pasture that would be grazed were made into hay for winter feed, how much more stock would be kept? 'The land would improve in condition, as turnips scourge it, while the tares and peas ■would enrich it and keep it free from weeds."