596 MEALS * MEDICINAL. 
culture. Comprising these with various other vegetable produc- 
tions of the kitchen garden under the name Cauwlis, he has 
pronounced :— 
““Caulis suburbano qui siccis crevit in agris 
Dulcior: irriguis nihil est elutius hortis.’’ 
“Plants from dry fields those of the town excel, 
Nothing more tasteless is than watered soil.” 
Turnips may be safely eaten when raw, having been at one 
time in favourite use thus in Russia by the upper classes. A 
boiled leg of mutton with turnips was the almost daily, and much 
loved dish for dinner of George III. In his quaint essay on 
Grace before Meat, Elia has said, “A man may feel thankful, 
heartily thankful, over a dish of plain mutton with turnips, and 
give himself leisure to reflect upon the ordinance, and institution 
of eating these; when he shall confess a pertubation of mind 
inconsistent with the purposes of saying his grace before meat, 
on sitting down to venison, or turtle.” Dr. Johnson’s famous 
illustration of false logic bears a familiar reference to these roots: 
“Tf a man fresh Turnips cries, 
But cries not when his father dies, 
Is this a proof the man would rather 
Possess fresh Turnips than a father ?” 
The Swede is of medicinal benefit for a chronic cough; it 
should be cut in slices like a loaf of bread, and each slice sprinkled 
with brown sugar, then placing these slices again in their order, 
so as to reform the Swede, and allowing it to stand thus in a 
dish for some hours. The juice which runs therefrom is an 
excellent remedy for an old cough. Or again, “‘ For a hoarsenesse, 
take a turnip, scoop out a hole from the top, and fill it up with 
brown sugar candy, and so roast it in the embers, and eat it with 
butter” (Rare and select Secrets in Physick and Chirurgery, 1653). 
The Swede, as well as the Turnip, when mashed, makes an 
excellent cleansing and stimulating poultice for indolent sores. 
In Southern America turnips are never sent to table in winter 
without a suspicion of added sugar to restore the flavour of which 
the frost has deprived them. Carlyle, writing from Chelsea 
(1842) to E. Fitzgerald, who had been excavating the supposed 
actual site of the battle of Naseby, north-west of his village, 
Woodbridge, said, ‘I will ask for a tooth, or a bullet, authenticated 
by your own eyes, and your word of honour. And our Scotch 
