Turnip Townshend
From Wikipedia:
Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend: Townshend introduced to England the four-field crop rotation pioneered by farmers in the Waasland region in the early 16th century. The system (wheat, barley, turnips and clover), opened up a fodder crop and grazing crop allowing livestock to be bred year-round, and increased productivity by avoiding leaving the soil uncultivated every third year. Previously, a three-year rotation was practiced by farmers in Europe with a rotation of rye or winter wheat, followed by spring oats or barley, then letting the soil rest (leaving it fallow) during the third stage. Crop rotation is necessary in order to avoid the build-up of crop-specific soil pests and diseases, and because different families of plant have varying nutritional requirements. The four-field crop rotation was a key development in the British Agricultural Revolution.
As a result of this, and other agricultural experiments at Raynham, he became known as Turnip Townshend. Although a figure of some fun, his agricultural reforms were extremely important. However, Alexander Pope mentions him in Imitations of Horace, Epistle II, as a turnip obsessed person and says, in a note, that "that kind of rural improvement which arises from turnips" was Townshend's favorite conversational topic. Townshend was twice married--first to Elizabeth (d. 1711), daughter of Thomas Pelham, 1st Baron Pelham of Laughton, and secondly to Dorothy (d. 1726), sister of Sir Robert Walpole. He had eight sons. The eldest son, Charles, the 3rd viscount (1700-1764), was called to the House of Lords in 1723. The second son, Thomas Townshend (1701-1780), was member of parliament for the university of Cambridge from 1727 to 1774; his only son, Thomas Townshend (1733-1800), who was created Baron Sydney in 1783 and Viscount Sydney in 1789, was a secretary of state and Leader of the House of Commons from July 1782 to April 1783, and from December 1783 to June 1789 again a secretary of state, Sydney in New South Wales being named after him; his grandson, John Robert Townshend (1805-1890), the 3rd viscount, was created Earl Sydney in 1874, the titles becoming extinct at his death. Charles Townshend's eldest son by his second wife was George Townshend (1715-1769), who after serving for many years in the navy, became an admiral in 1765. The third viscount had two sons, George, 1st Marquess Townshend, and Charles Townshend...
IIRC, Thomas Townshend was stepfather of the Duke of Buccleuch, Patron of Adam Smith, and one of the principal causes of the American Revolution...
