two inches deep, in a circle of about four inches diameter; this operation must be performed with strict care and regularity, as the plants are afterwards to be covered with blanching pots, and both the health and beauty of the crop depends upon their standing at equal distances. In the months of May and June, if the seeds are sound, the young plants will appear. When they have made three or four leaves, take away all but three of the best plants from each circle, planting out those you pull up (which by a careful hand may be drawn with all their taproot) in a spare bed for extra-forcing, or to repair accidents. The turnip fly and wire-worm are great enemies to the whole class of tetradvnamia plants. I know no remedy for the latter, but picking them out of the ground by hand; the former may be prevented from doing much damage, by a circle of quick lime strewed round the young plants. If the months of June and July prove dry, water the whole beds plentifully. In the following November, as soon as the leaves are decayed, clear them away, and cover the beds an inch thick with fresh light earth and sand, that has laid in a heap and been turned over at least three times the preceding summer; this, and indeed all composts, should be kept scrupulously free from weeds, many of which nourish insects, and the compost is too often filled with their eggs and grubs. Upon this dressing of sandy loam throw about six inches in depth of light stable litter, which finishes every thing to be done the first year. In the spring of the second year, when the plants are beginning to push, rake off the stable litter, digging a * It appears to me, that for forcing, it would be a great improvement to make the blanching pots in two pieces, the uppermost of which should fit like a cap upon the lower; the crop might then be examined at all periods without disturbing the hot dung. SECR. little little of the most rotten into the alleys, and add another inch in depth of fresh loam and sand. Abstain from cutting this year, though some of the plants will probably rise very strong, treating the beds the succeeding winter exactly as before. The third season, a little before the plants begin to stir, rake off the winter covering, laying on now an inch in depth of pure dry sand, or fine gravel. Then cover each parcel with one of the blanching pots, pressing it very firmly into the ground, so as to exclude all light and air; for the colour and favour of the Sea Kale is greatly injured by being exposed to either. If the beds are twenty-six feet long, and four wide, they will hold twenty-four blanching pots, with three plants under each, making seventy-two plants in a bed. Examine them from time to time, cutting the young stems, when about three .inches above ground, carefully, so as not to injure any of the remaning buds below, some of which will immediately begin to swell; in this method, a succession of gatherings may be continued for the space of six weeks, after which period the plants should be uncovered, and their leaves suffered to grow, that they may acquire and return nutriment to the root for the next year's buds, The flowers, when seeds are not wanted, ought to be nipped off with the finger and thumb, as long as they appear. If a gentleman does not choose to be at the expense of blanching pots, the beds must be covered with a larger portion of loose gravel, and mats; but the time and trouble of taking away the gravel from about the plants, to cut the crop, and replacing it, is so great, that there is no real economy in it. In this way Sea Kale has been cut in Mr. Beale's garden, which measured ten, eleven, and even twelve inches in circumference, and and upon an average each blanching pot affords a dish twice in a season. No vegetable can be so easily forced as this, or with so little expense and trouble; for the dung is in the finest possible order for spring hot-beds, after the Sea Kale is gathered. The only thing necessary, is to be very' particular in guarding against too much heat, keeping the temperature under the blanching pots as near to fifty-five degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer as may be, but never higher than sixty. For this purpose, in November and December, according as you want your Sea Kale, prepare a sufficient quantity of fresh stable dung, to cover both the beds and alleys, from two to three feet high; for in the quantity to be laid on, a great deal must always be left to the good sense of the gardener, and the mildness or severity of the season. It should be closely pressed down between the blanching pots, placing heatsticks at proper intervals, which by being examined occasionally will indicate the heat below. After the dung has remained four or five days, examine the pots. Worms often spring above the surface, and spoil the delicacy of the young shoots: the best remedy against which, is to cover with dry sea-coal ashes, sifted neither very small nor very large; salt also effectually destroys them, and will not injure the Sea Kale. The crop will be ready to gather in three weeks or a month from first applying the heat; but so much mischief ensues when this is violent, that I would advise every one to begin time enough, and force slowly, rather than quickly. It is also necessary to cut the leaves off a fortnight or three weeks before they decay, from such plants as you intend to force very early. Method Method of preserving Turnips in the Winter Season. By Mr. JAMES DEAN, of Exeter. From the TRANSACTIONS of the SOCIETY for the Encou ragement of ARTS, MANUFACTURES, and COMMERCE. The Thanks of the Society were voted to Mr. DEAN for this Communication. HEN surveying an estate in the South-Hams of Devon, in February last, my attention was attracted by the singular appearance of a crop of turnips in an orchard, so thick as to touch each other, and closely surround the stems of the apple-trees. I enquired of the farmer the reason of so unusual a crop, and I received from him some curious information. It was the constant practice, he said, in his neighbourhood, for farmers, after they had broken up ley ground, first to take a crop of turnips, and in the autumn, or rather winter, to sow wheat in the same ground. Should winter fodder be scarce, they then preserved the turnip crop for stock, and consequently, could not put in wheat before January ; and even then with no probability of having more than two thirds of an usual crop, because of the late sowing. This was an evil of great magnitude, and led him, he added, to make trial of a mode peculiarly successful, enabling him to sow his seed in the proper season, and to save the most valuable of his turnip crop during the winter. He got, he said, his turnip seed into the ground early in June; and in October, by which time the turnips would have grown to a large size, he had the largest of them drawn without injuring the leaves, and then placed close to each other on the grass in the orchard, in the same position in which they grew. Their leaves pre Description of a new Kind of Agricultural Implement. 273 served them from external injury; and their tap-roots put out in a short time other fibrous roots into the grass, which in orchards is generally long in the autumn; and thus the turnips were preserved good for use. I enquired whether the turnips acquired any additional size after their removal into the orchard, and whether, from the warmth occasioned by the turnips to the ground, any advantageous effect was apparent in the apple trees. On these questions he was not able to speak positively, though he thought the turnips had increased in size; and he thought, likewise, that the crops of apples appeared larger, and the annual bearings more certain in the orchard I was observing, than in those where no turnips were put; though, till the time I spoke, he had not even guessed at the cause. Description of a new Kind of Agricultural Implement. By M. CAPRIATA, Member of the Agricultural Society of Turin. From SONNINI'S JOURNAL. With a Plate. I HAVE frequently remarked that these parts of mea dows over which the carts usually passed produced more hay than the others, provided their passage was not so fréquent as to destroy entirely, or too much to damage, the turf. I was greatly surprised at this; for, those parts being rough and trodden down, it appeared to me that they would naturally produce less than that which remained undisturbed and perfectly smooth. I enquired the cause of this fact of a distinguished farmer, who accounted for it in a manner that I thought very unsatisfactory. But, when I learnt that our illustrious member, M. Ratti Casalasco, by cutting roots caused them to shoot VOL. XI.-SECOND SERIES. N n better, |