Chap. VI.] Swedish Turnips. 14T 



white turnip, or the cabbage, be frozen, or not, at the 

 time when they eat them. Thej are just as good ; and 

 are as greedily eaten. Otherwise, how would our sheep 

 in England fatten on turnips (even white turnips) in 

 the open fields and amidst snows and hard Irosts \ 

 But, a potatoe, let the frost once touch it, and it is 

 wet dirt. 



241. I am of opinion, that if there were no earth put 

 over the turnip heaps, or stacks, it would be better; 

 and, it would be much more convenient. I shall venture 

 it for a part of my crop ; and I would recommend others 

 to try it. The Northern Winter is, therefore, no objec- 

 tion to the raising of any of these crops ; and, indeed, 

 the crops are far more necessary there than to the 

 Southward, because the Northern Winter is so much 

 longer than the Southern. Let the snows (even the 

 Nova Scotia snows) come. There are the crops safe. 

 Ten minutes brings in a wagon load at any time in 

 winter, and the rest remain safe till spring. 



242. I have been asked how I would manage the 

 Swedish turnips, so as to keep them 'till June or July. 

 In April (for Long Island) ; that is to say, when the 

 roots begin to shoot out greens, or, as they will be, 

 yclloics, when hidden from the liyht. Let me stop here 

 a moment, to make a remark wliich this circumstance 

 has suggested. I have said before, that if you keep the 

 bulbs from the light., they will freeze and thaw without 

 the lea.st injury. I was able to give no reason for this ; 

 and who can give a reason for leaves being yellow it" 

 they grow in the dark, and green, if they grow in the 

 light ? It is not the sun (except as the source of light) 

 that makes the green; for any plant that grows int 

 constant shade will be green ; while one that grows in 

 the dark will be yellow. When my son, James, was 

 about three years old, Loki> Cocukan'e, lying against a 

 green bank in the garden with him, had asked him many 

 questions about the sky, and the river, and the sun and 

 the moon, in order to learn what were the notions, as to 

 those objects, in the mind of a child. James grew tired, 

 for as Rousseau, in lus admirable e.vposure of the folly 

 of teaching by question and answer, observes, nobody 

 Ukm to be ([mstiomdi and especially childreu. " Well>" 



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