CULTIVATION OF PARSNIP. 3 



to supersede the necessity of corn, except when the work is 

 excessive ; and in Brittany, they are even used for this 

 purpose, to the exclusion of corn. 



I may add, that it is a popular opinion among the Jersey 

 farmers, that all animals intended for the butcher may be 

 fattened on parsnips in nearly half the time, and with half 

 the quantity,, which is required in feeding them with 

 potatoes. This must, however, be taken rather as a 

 general opinion, with regard to the superiority of the one 

 root over the other, than as the result of any accurate set of 

 experiments, since the practices of agriculture in that 

 island as well as in Guernsey, are by no means reduced to 

 that nicety of calculation, which they have hitherto expe- 

 rienced in Britain. 



In Brittany, they also form a principle article of the food 

 of the people, and are still used largely, notwithstanding^ 

 the introduction of the potato ; but I need scarcely add, 

 that, as in the case of most other roots, the potato has, to 

 a great degree, also diminished the consumption of pars- 

 nips as an article of human food. The peculiarity of their 

 flavour is such, as perhaps for ever to prevent them from 

 entering into competition with that most valuable plant ; 

 although, in situations similar to the highland districts to> 

 which I have above alluded, the cultivation of the pars- 

 nip, to a certain extent, might probably be found a useful 

 resource, at least as an auxiliary article of food, in case of 

 t he failure of the potato. 



Before terminating this paper, I may remark, that a 

 species of wine has been often manufactured from the 

 fermented juice of parsnips, and that report speaks in its 



