CRUCIFEROUS TRIBE 73 



Cogan, in his " Haven of Health," published in 1597, says, that although 

 many men love to eat Turnips, yet do swine abhor them. From Gerarde's 

 " Herbal," published at the same time, we may infer that more than one 

 variety was cultivated in the neighbourhood of London at that period. 

 " The small Turnep," he says, that " grows by a village near London, called 

 Hackney, in a sandie ground, and is brought to the crosse in Cheapside by 

 the women of the village to be solde, is the best that I ever knew." Turnips 

 have been used very extensively as food in seasons of dearth. Thus, in the 

 years 1629 — 30, when there was a great scarcity of provisions in England, 

 excellent white bread was made of these roots, which for this purpose were 

 boiled, and, the moisture being expressed, were kneaded with an equal 

 quantity of wheaten flour. They were also thus eaten in Essex at a much 

 later period. 



St. Pierre, speaking of the beauties of the vegetables of the north of 

 Europe, describes some very richly tinted roots of the Turnip. " Nature," he 

 says, " to indemnify these countries for the scarcity of apparent flowers, of 

 which it produces but a small number, has bestowed their perfumes on 

 several plants, as the Sweet Reed (Calamus aromaticus) ; the Birch, which in 

 spring emits a strong smell of roses ; and the Fir, the apples of which are 

 sweet-scented. She has likewise diflused the most pleasing and the most 

 brilliant colours of flowers on the most common of vegetables, such as the 

 cones of the Larch, which are of a beautiful crimson, on the scarlet berries 

 of the Service-tree, on the Mosses, the Mushroom, and even on the Swedish 

 Turnip. On the subject of this last vegetable, hear what the accurate 

 Cornelius le Bruyn says in his voyage to Archangel : — ' During our resi- 

 dence among them (the Samojedes), they brought us several species of Turnips 

 of various colours, and of surprising beauty. Some were violet, like our 

 plums ; others gray, white, yellowish ; all were streaked with red, like ver- 

 milion, or the most beautiful lake, and as pleasing to the eye as a carnation. 

 I painted some of them on paper in water-colours, and sent a quantity to 

 Holland, in a box filled with dry sand, to one of my friends, a lover of this 

 kind of curiosities. I carried my paintings to Archangel ; when nobody 

 would believe they were copied from nature, till I produced the Turnips 

 themselves — a proof that very little attention is there paid to the rarest and 

 most curious productions of Nature.' These Turnips I take to be of the 

 species called Ruta baga, or Swedish Turnip, the bulb of which grows above 

 the ground — at least, I presume so, from the drawing which Le Bruyn him- 

 self gives of it, and because I have seen such in Finland. They are superior 

 in taste to our cabbage, and have a flavour similar to the hearts of artichokes. 

 I have produced these testimonies of a painter, and that painter a native of 

 Holland, on the beauty of these colours, to overthrow a prejudice which is 

 so general, that in the Indies alone the sun gives a magnificent colouring to 

 vegetables." 



27. Mustard (Sindpis). 



1. Wild Mustard or Charlock (S. arvdnsis). — Leaves rough, and 

 toothed ; pods with many angles, rugged, and knotty, longer than the awl- 

 shaped beak ; stem bristly. Plant annual. This Charlock is too frequent 



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