THE BIG TUIRNIP MANIA.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 776, 7 June 1877, Page 3

THE BIG TUIRNIP MANIA.

The " Doctor " m his > Weekly Dose," m last Saturday's 'Star,' says:— .

In the old primitive days. of our forefathers, when an editor had no / news- for his readers, he TelUback upon a big gooseberry or an obese turnip. We, who are grown wiser, have invented other means of relieving 1 the monotony of dull times. The, ;tulip.. mania was played; put; yea,rs and.years ago, but then there is the mangold wurtzel mania, which is having a big run just now. Samivel, Marks thought he reached the nltima thule of agricultural enterprise when he produced a anangel large 'enough to fill a fail • j sized wheel-barrow; but Hurst ' saw I

him ' with a whopper, grown bythe, of that incomparable compost lr.no wn as 'Hurst's .'own,' and.another agriculturist went for him like a B(a)ird with a plethoric-looking esculent that took a man and a email

boy about/five minutes to walk round. The other day we heard a i 4j*?menddus commotion on the lariding~outside our sanctum. There was

the ntise of a great struggle, with

much stamping, and a voice, shouting ' steady I— easy !— stick to it, Bill !' and. then a . moment later the

door was^ourst ia by a battering ramj the air was darkened, and two powerful farmers, perspiring fcn^ .grunting under the weight of ; some • enormous object that looked like a [.great gnarled log of timber, fcur»t japon, pur, affrighted gaie. They •t)fr&h sang out ' one, two, three, and away/ aitid flopped* the thing down on a three-legged chair; Six printer's devils rushed m, and enquired .breathlessljif we had felt the/earfehr quake, and immediately, afterwards a tall policeman come bounding upstairs, and bawled put m Hibernian accents ' Musha, is anyone buried m the ritinsi' The cause of all this -commotion looked as if nothing m vtKe world had happened out of the ♦ common; and orie^of thenr, taking j -i. off his billy-cock (flattened), and : mopping 1 his saturated, brow, ensquired : — >■ « Muster, What d'yo think 'b that Doctor ,: Why, there's some mistake, "Wo", didn't order any firewood, On-.e of^ttje farmers scratched liis head, and re'ptied—JST6 mistake about 'im, Muster. He's a foine 'un, aju,t 'c. Just feel o' 'ua j 'es as fat as butter, an' got a skin ss foine as a leddy's hand. Doctor : I think I told you, my friend, that I didn't; want any logs just no w- I beg /to state, for 1 your information, that this is not a sawmill. ;■ \ Giles No. 1 : Wha saicl anything about saw-,mills ?

'Doctor : I tell you I won't have any logs luVubering up this room. If you want a puff for .your confounded timber, take it downstairs.

Giles No/ 2: Why, lor' bleas'e man, it beant no timber.

Doctor': Then what the is ft-p-

voiles (both) : Why, it's, a mangel. : DxOCi or : Well, I don't want to buy. a mangle. It hasn't come to that yet, /ny friend,, so just carfc the thing out of this, will you; Giles -N0..,! 1 'Why, man, didn't 's ever see a mangel wurz'l afore ? Doctor: D'ye moan to say that confounded thing's, ,a turnip ? . Here the two worries broke oat into,a prolonged guffawv the policeman instinctively shoutfcTd : ' silence r in coort,' aud. sixteen '.'otnVv voices felled m chorus >^ Tire !' ..r J' 1 . Arid it turned jo at after all that the thing was a mangel wurzel gro\>'n by Brewin. By tbe united efforts of' the companionshjip it was conveyed down stain, and on being weighed -was fonnd to tnrn the scale

at lOcwt Gibs 4£0«3. Ifc was afterwards cut up with a '' cross-cut sa w, and purchased m sections by sixteen dairymen.'

- P.S. — After this perhaps ' Old Colonial' of the' Herald' will stop writing- yarns about big mangels. 'Solemnly warn that individual that -if he doesn't, I shall trot out even a tfarger cue than the above.