406 HORTICULTURAL MEMOIRS. 



But it is chieflly on account of the power 

 which it possesses of resisting the injuries of 

 frost, that I have ventured to point it out as an 

 object of attention to the Caledonian Horticul- 

 tural Society. The injury which the greert 

 crops, commonly cultivated in the northern parts 

 of our island, suffer from this enemy, is such as 

 to render it highly desirable to find one which 

 shall be exempt from the effects of winter. 



It has been hitherto, but generally and care- 

 lessly said, and as if the fact was not well ascer- 

 tained, that this root did not suffer from frost. 

 The unusually severe winter of 1813 14, has 

 enabled me to decide this question most posi- 

 tively ; and to name the parsnip, as perhaps 

 the only cultivated root which appears to defy 

 all cold: In the garden of my friend Mr Ma- 

 thews at Waltham Abbey, a crop of parsnips 

 was suffered to continue in the ground through- 

 out the winter. That land is well known to be 

 wet meadow-land, and was frozen in a solid mass, 

 to the u^pth of a foot or more. The roots re- 

 mained unhurt ; and while I write, in the begin- 

 ning of April 1814, they are all putting out 

 their new shoots. This hardiness, which would 

 render the parsnip a desirable object of cultiva- 

 tion in the coldest parts of Scotland, would still 

 more recommend its use to the unfortunate 

 Greenlanders, among whom the esculent vege- 

 tables have hitherto been limited to two or three, 



