PARSLE Y PARSNIP 89 



consign them to the rubbish heap. Parsley is often grown as an 

 edging, but it is only in large gardens where this can be done advan- 

 tageously, and then a very handsome edging is secured. In small 

 gardens it is best to sow on a bed in lines one foot apart, and thin 

 out first to three inches and finally to six inches, the best of the 

 thinnings being planted a foot apart, to last over as proposed above. 

 When Parsley has stood some time it becomes coarse, but the young 

 growth may be renewed by cutting over ; this operation being also 

 useful to defer the flowering, which is surely hastened by leaving the 

 plants alone. For the winter supply a late plantation made in a shel- 

 tered spot will usually suffice, for the plant is very hardy, but it may 

 be expedient sometimes to put old frames over a piece worth keeping, 

 or to protect during hard weather with dry litter. In gathering, 

 care should be taken to pick separately the young leaves that are 

 nearly full grown, and to take only one or two from each plant. It 

 costs no more time to fill a basket by taking a leaf or two here and 

 there from a whole row than to strip two or three plants, and the 

 difference in the end will be considerable as regards the total produce 

 and quality of the crop. 



PARSNIP 



(Pastinaca sativa) 



THE PARSNIP is one of the most profitable roots the earth produces. 

 Probably its sweet flavour imposes a limit on its usefulness, but bad 

 cooking doubtless has much to answer for, the people in our great 

 towns being, in too many instances, quite ignorant of the proper 

 mode of cooking this nourishing root. When cut in strips and 

 slightly boiled and served up almost crisp, it is a poor thing for 

 human food ; but when cooked whole in such a way as to appear on 

 the table like a mass of marrow, it is at once a digestible dainty and 

 a substantial food that the people might consume more largely than 

 they do, to their advantage. 



The Parsnip requires only one special condition for its welfare, 

 and that is a piece of ground prepared for it by honest digging. Rich 

 ground it does not need, but the crop will certainly be the finer from 

 a deep fertile sandy loam than from a poor soil of any kind. But 

 the one great point is to trench the ground in autumn and lay it up 

 rough for the winter. Then at the very first opportunity in February 

 or March, it can be levelled down and the seed sown, and the job 



