The English or round turnip is usually sown broadcast after some other crop, and large and valuable returns are often obtained. The Swede is sown in drills. Both these varieties are used for the production of milk.
The chief objection to the turnip crop is that it leaves many kinds of soil unfit for a succession of some other crops, like Indian corn, for instance. In some sections no amount of manuring appears to make corn do well after turnips or ruta bagas.
Mangold Wurzel
The Mangold Wurzel, a variety of the Beta vulgaris, is often cultivated with great success in this country, and fed to cows with advantage, furnishing a succulent and nutritive food in winter and spring. The crop is somewhat uncertain. When it does well an enormous yield is often obtained; but it often proves a failure, and is not, on the whole, quite as reliable as the ruta baga, though a more valuable crop when the yield is good. It is cultivated like the common beet, in moist, rich soils, three pounds of seed to the acre. The leaves may be stripped off, towards fall, and fed out, without injury to the growth of the root. Both mangolds and turnips should be cut with a root-cutter, before being fed out.
Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa)
The Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa) is a very sweet and nutritive article of fodder, and adds richness and flavor to the milk. It is worthy of extended culture in all parts of this country where dairy husbandry is pursued. It is a biennial, easily raised on deep, rich, well-cultivated and well-manured soils, often yielding enormous crops, and possessing the advantage of withstanding the severest winters. As an article of spring feeding, therefore, it is exceedingly valuable. Sown in April or May, it attains a large growth before winter. Then, if desirable, a part of the crop may be harvested for winter use, and the remainder left in the ground till the frost is out, in March or April, when they can be dug as wanted, and are exceedingly relished by milch cows, and stock of all kinds. They make an admirable feed at the time of milking, and produce the richest cream, and the yellowest and finest-flavored butter, of any root with which I am acquainted. The good dairy farmers on the island of Jersey often feed to their cows from thirty to thirty-five pounds of parsnips a day, in addition to hay or grass.
Both practical experiment and scientific analysis prove this root to be eminently adapted to dairy stock, where the richness of milk or fine-flavored butter is any object. For mere milk-dairies, it is not quite so valuable, probably, as the Swedish turnip. The culture is similar to that of carrots, a rich, mellow, and deep loam being best; while it has a great advantage over the carrot in being more hardy, and rather less liable to injury from insects, and more nutritive. For feeding and fattening stock it is eminently adapted.
To be sure of a crop, fresh seed must be had, as it cannot be depended on more than one year. For this reason, the largest and straightest roots should be allowed to stand for seed, which, as soon as nearly ripe, should be taken off and spread out to dry, and carefully kept for use. For field culture the hollow-crowned parsnip is the best and most profitable; but on thin, shallow soils the turnip-rooted variety should be used. Parsnips may be harvested like carrots, by ploughing along the rows. Let butter or cheese dairymen give this crop a fair and full trial, and watch its effect on the quality of the milk and butter.
Kohl Rabi (Brassica oleracea, var. caulorapa)
The Kohl Rabi (Brassica oleracea, var. caulorapa) is also cultivated to a considerable extent in this country, to feed to stock. It is supposed to be a hybrid between the cabbage and the turnip, and is often called the cabbage-turnip, having the root of the former, with a turnip-like or bulbous stem. The special reason for its more extensive cultivation among us is its wonderful indifference to droughts, in which it seems to flourish best, and to bring forth the most luxuriant crops. It also withstands the frosts remarkably, being a hardy plant. It yields a somewhat richer quality of milk than the ordinary turnip, and the crop is generally admitted to be as abundant and profitable. I have seen very large crops of it produced by the ordinary turnip or cabbage cultivation. As in cabbage culture, it is best to sow the seed in March or April, in a warm and well-enriched seed-bed; from which it is transplanted in May, and set out after the manner of cabbages in garden culture. It bears transplanting better than most other roots. Insects injure it less than the turnip, dry weather favors it, and it keeps well through the winter. For these reasons, it must be regarded as a valuable addition to our list of forage plants adapted to dairy farming. It grows well on stronger soils than the turnip.