HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



217 



THE HISTOEY OF OUE CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



No. V— THE TURNIP {Brassica Rapa). 



'HE Turnip, as before 

 stated, belongs to 

 the same class as 

 the Cabbage; it is a 

 biennial plant, and 

 a frequent weed of 

 cultivation found in 

 the borders of fields 

 and waste places in 

 Europe, and in the 

 rate and subtropical 

 lates of Asia. In this 

 the root - leaves are 

 large, of a deep green co- 

 lour, very rough, jagged, and 

 gashed. In the second sea- 

 son it sends up a flower- 

 stalk with leaves embracing 

 the stem, smooth, glaucous, 

 oblong, and pointed ; the 

 flowers and pods resemble 

 those of the cabbage, but the 

 petals are of a much brighter 

 }-ellow. The varieties both 

 under garden and field cul- 

 ture are very numerous, while these again differ 

 with soil and climate and manner of cultivation. 



The turnip was known to the Greeks, who called 

 this vegetable Gongyle, from the roundness of its 

 roots. It is said to have been introduced into 

 Greece and Italy from Gaul. The ancient Greeks 

 appear not to have used it much as an article of 

 diet, but more as a medicine, for cataplasm, and as 

 an external application to recover frozen or be- 

 numbed feet, being first boiled in water and then 

 applied as a fomentation. Democritus, the cele- 

 brated philosopher of Abdera, who lived in the 5lh 

 century B.C., banished turnips altogether from the 

 table, on account of their engendering flatulency ; 

 while Diodes, a physician of the next century, on 

 the other hand, extolled these roots as much as the 

 former philosopher had condemned them. By the 

 No. 118. 



Romans they were much esteemed. Cato mentions 

 them as being cultivated at Rome in his time ; 

 Pliny, in his Nat. Hist., writes thus of the turnip, 

 which he says is pretty nearly the same in nature 

 as the Rape {B. Naptts) and thrives equally well in a 

 cold soil. The proper time for sowing both kinds 

 is the period that intervenes between the festivals 

 of the two divinities Neptune and Vulcan (23rd July 

 and 23rd August). It is said too — and it is the result 

 of very careful observation — that these plants will 

 thrive wonderfully well, if they are sown as many 

 days after the festival of Neptune as the moon was 

 old when the first snow fell the previous winter. 

 They are sown in spring as well, in warm and 

 humid localities. The more careful growers re- 

 commend that the ground should be turned up five 

 times before putting in the turnip, and four for 

 rape, care being taken iu both cases to manure it 

 well. Rape, they say, will thrive all the better if it 

 is sown together with some chaff. He also states 

 that the sower ought to be stripped, and that he 

 should offer a prayer while sowing, and say, " I sow 

 this for myself and my neighbours." 



Erom all that can be gathered from the writings 

 of the ancients, it is probable that the turnip 

 occupied nearly the same place iu Roman culture 

 as it does in the British husbandry of the 'present 

 day. Columella recommended that the growth of 

 turnips should be abundant, because those which 

 were not required for human food could be given 

 with much advantage to cattle, and both Pliny and 

 he concur iu their testimony that this produce 

 was esteemed next to corn in utility and value. 

 Columella states that turnips were particularly 

 abundant in Gaul, and that the inhabitants fed their 

 cattle with them. The best turnips, according to 

 Pliny, grew in tlie country of the Sabines, and were 

 worth at Rome a sestertius, or twopence, each. It 

 is related that when the Samuite ambassadors 

 visited Maulius Curius they found him cooking 

 turnips by the embers of Lis watch-fire, and when 

 they displayed the treasures which were intended 



