Chap. 25.] EAPE : TURNIPS. IGl 



from the sun, with a layer of sand beneath, and dry hay .'ind 

 earth on the top of them, they may be kept green for a very 

 long time. We also find wild ''^ cucumbers and gourds ; and, 

 indeed, the same is the case with pretty nearly all the garden 

 plants. These wild varieties, however, are only possessed of 

 certain medicinal properties, and for this reason we shall defer 

 any further mention of them till we come to the Books appro- 

 priated to that subject. 



CHAP. 25. EAPE. TTJENIPS. 



The other plants that are of a cartilaginous nature are con- 

 cealed, all of them, in the earth. In the number of these is 

 the rape, a subject upon which it would almost appear that 

 we have treated'^ at sufficient length already, were it not that 

 we think it as well to observe, that medical men call those 

 which are round *' male,"'^ while those which are larger and 

 more elongated, are knoAvn to them as " female " rape : these 

 last are superior in sweetness, and better for keeping, but by 

 successive sowings they are changed into male rape.^^ 



The same authors, too, have distinguished five different va- 

 rieties of the turnip :®^ the Corinthian, the Cleonaean, the 

 Liothasian, the Boeotian, and the one which they have charac- 

 terized as peculiarly the " green " turnip. The Corintliian 

 turnip ^- grows to a very large size, and the root is all but out 

 of the ground ; indeed, this is the only kind that, in growing, 

 shoots upwards, and not as the others do, downwards into the 

 ground. The Liothasian is known by some persons as the^ 

 Thracian turnip f^ it is the one that stands extreme cold the 

 best of all. Next to it, the Boeotian kind is the sweetest ; it is re- 

 markable, also, for the roundness of its shape and its shortness ; 



" See B. XX. c. 2. '« In B. xviii. c. 34. 



" Though borrowed from Theophrastus and the Greek school, tliis dis- 

 tinction is absurd and unfounded. 



•'•0 It is not the fact that the seed of the round kind, after repeated 

 so\vings, will produce long roots. Pliny, however, has probably miscopied 

 Theophrastus, who says, Hist. Plant. B. vii. c. 4, that this transformation 

 takes place when the seed is sown very thick. This assertion, howcVLV, 

 is no move founded on truth than that of Pliny. 



*>! A)so from Theophrastus, B. vii. c. 4 ; though that aiithor is speaking 

 of radishes, pacpavic^g^ and not turnips. 



*^ Properly radish. ^^ Properly radish. 



VOL. IV. il 



