It is a crop that favours only certain areas of Ontario with specific soil conditions: the Bright-Ratho-Tavistock strip, the Rockwood, and the Exeter Areas. The census of 1861 shows East Zorra with 228,223 bushels; the census for 1871 gives the North Riding of Oxford a production of 749,239 bushels.

This is a crop that kept the farmer and his sons and daughters busy between regular jobs, before breakfast and after chores. What endless rods of ridges were blocked and skinned of weed with a push and pull on an 8-inch hoe! But today most turnips are planted on the flat in rows at twenty-inch intervals with a precision planter. Spacing is vital since spraying, cultivating and harvesting are done by machine. DDT is applied as soon as the first two leaves break through the soil, to protect the young plants against the Black Fly. After hoeing and blocking, they are treated with Heplchlor to protect against worms, and thereafter about every fourteen days with proper sprays against the beetle, and water core. This continues until twenty-one days before harvesting, a period set by the Department of Health, to protect the consumer against residual poisons. Under favourable conditions plant aphids may add to the grower's worries. With reasonable weather, the crop will mature in about ninety days, shipping often beginning in the early part of August.

Topping and pulling and loading onto a high wagon to haul bushel after bushel to the turnip cellar, under the barn hill, was a cold, back-breaking chore. Now a belt-machine undercuts, lifts and tops the roots simultaneously, and elevates them into tractor-drawn, rubber-tired waggons, that haul their loads to the waxing plants.

Here in the good old days turnips were washed by hand and dipped into the molten wax with a double-ladle. A man with help could process about 300 bushels in four hours. The rate was speeded up by the use of a beet-fork with knobbed tines.

The modern plant can handle this amount in about an hour. As they move along a belt from the receiving station, the poor ones are culled out if they show growth cracks, insect injury, mechanical injury. poor shape or in correct size. Grades are based on size within a two-inch range: they are 3"-5", "3'12-5'12", 4"-6", No. I large 6" and over small ones 2"-4" are a special class that finds it sole market in Philadelphia. Every turnip must be washed and thoroughly dried in bins from 7 - 10 hours. Too humid a day may postpone the waxing process. On a mat-chain the turnips pass through molten wax held at 2600 F. at a speed that prevent coo king.

Packaging varies. Some are bagged in jute and paper at 50 pounds, some at 25 pounds, some at 50 pounds in polyethylene bags and some in 40 pound cartons.

Through the good offices of Mr. Roy Facey, we obtained the following history of the industry from Mr. R.N. Scott, Guelph:
"The first export of turnips to the U.S.A. was made by Mr. M.P. Parry, Rockwood, Ontario to Boston, Mass. in 1883. This first shipment was actually intended to feed sheep, which were being exported at that time. Some, however, found their way to the tables of Boston residents and resulted in an order for a carload of good Ontario turnips.

"Before 1932 aLI turnips were shipped plain; but in that year the Ontario Marketing Board conducted experimental work on washing, waxing and branding turnips for the domestic and export markets. This was in co-operation with the Blackwater Turnip Growers Association and this group carried on waxing, mainly restricting it to the cut surface at the neck and root. As this left a lot to be desired the totally waxed product appeared in the 1934-35 season.

"The following year out of a total export of 1,182,000 bu. from Ontario 15, 150 bu. were waxed stock. By 1946-47 this had risen to 53.8% of total movement and in 1966-67 season to 85%.

"Since export is to a foreign land, close inspection of each shipment is made by the Fruit and Vegetable Division of the Federal Department of Agriculture. Shipment is made direct to markets as far away as Florida by refrigerator trucks that you may see leaving the plants most any day. Shipping by rail was discontinued in the early 50's. A duty entry fee of about 5¢, per bu. is imposed."

The H.G. Culver plant has taken over from C.M. Stovel of Toronto. It is located on Woodstock St. S., where Mr. Conrad Matthies used to have his blacksmith shop. The plant has taken over the old bam that bordered Herbert Alley and converted the whole into a modern establishment. Here Roy Facey, processes from 65-70,000 bushels per year from August 1 to Mid-April. Roy purchases about 40,000 from local farmers and markets them through H.G. Culver Co. Ltd. or directly. Prices vary from as high as $2.50 per bushel to as low as 50¢. During the depression days the farmer received only 6-7¢ per bushel.

H. G. Culver Rutabagas

A similar operation is carried o n by Mr. Lorne Junker, in what was originally the barn of the Oxford Hotel. 'The old barns, nearer Wood tock Street, had served from earliest times as a "hostel" for the horses of customers as well as a livery stable with horse for hire. The new barn was built in 1923, 76 feet long by 32 feet wide. It first served as a barn until the advent of the automobile, then as a hatchery and chicken stable. In 1956 Mr. Junker rented it for the waxing of turnips, first for friends and relatives, later as a business. His production in 1962 for export reached 65,000 bushels."
   - T.P.S. History of Tavistock - Keith Woelfle

At the April 19, 1965 meeting of the Village Council a building permit was granted to Mr. Junker to build an addition to the front of hi plant: 32'x32'. On the same date, he and John Hauser obtained a permit to erect a storage shed, 50'x 120', on the east side of John St.

S. T. Loveys Ltd. Ford
Coal, cement, feed and seed, turnip waxing.

The farmer to the south of us are served by the plant of Eric Loveys at Hickson. The export of this product from here was of such volume as to warrant the continued operation of the former Pt. Dover Line from Woodstock to Hickson until 1965, even after the section between Hickson and Tavistock had been abandoned in 1932.

Borden's, Hickson

Currah Mills, Hickson

According to the Tweedsmuir History of the Hickson W.I., the first shipments were made in 1910; S.T. Loveys Ltd. was early in this field, the first part of the plant being built in 1938, with an addition in 1941 and a second in 1952. Eight to ten persons are employed with a maximum plant capacity of 2000 bushels per day. Approximately 8% of the 2,000,000 annual production of waxed turnips comes from this plant. Shipments are made to: Buffalo, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Detroit, New York, Chicago, Hartford and Birmingham.

Trinity Anglican Church 1847
Hwy. 59, on the way to Hickson