GF SCOTLAND.

555

3. Upon rich soil, which has only grown one crop of grain,after being taken up from old pasture ley, turnips are fre-quently sown without any manure ; but generally the turnip-break is manured with farm-yard dung. Some farmers dungthe whole, or a part of the land intended for turnips, imme-diately after harvest, before giving it the first ploughing *.This, it is said, saves a great deal of time and labour, in theexcessive hurry of the turnip season; and answers tolerablywell upon good land that is entirely free from root w-ceds.But the most generally approved method of applying dung,is to lay it in the drills, immediately before sowing, as shallbe explained in the fifth subdivision of this section.

4 The time of sowing must be regulated by circumstances;but the beginning of June is considered as the most favour-able season for ensuring a full crop. When sown earlier,they are apt to run up their flowering stems before winter,to the great injury of the feeding quality of the root. Whenlater, they have scarcely time enough remaining before win-ter sets in, to form their roots to a full crop. The first weekof June is the usual time of beginning to sow ; and every ex-ertion is made to have the whole finished before the end otthe month.

5. Drilling of turnips is so general over Scotland , that hard-ly any is to be seen broadcast; and the drills or rows areuniversally at from 27 to SO inches distant.

When the soil is clean from root weeds, and finely redu-ced, it is formed into straight lined ridgelets of the proper

* It is difficult to imagine, how these farmers got manure enough to layon this season, unless they had begun originally to manure in this way, and losttlie use of their dung for one season altogether. At any rate, their dung mustbe by far too much digested and rotten, except that portion made by summersoiling. The practice is not to be recommended; for a part of the valuable mat-ter of the manure, must be diluted and washed away by the winter rains, andmore must evaporate in a gaseous form, when the land is wrought and preparedfor receiving the seed iu the spring and summer following.