PARSLEY 327 



in topping, particularly those topped by machinery. To prevent 

 the losses which occur in storage from this disease, care should be 

 exercised to use only clean implements for topping and to disinfect 

 the topping machines carefully and frequently. 



PARSLEY 



Parsley and cress are the two plants most used for garnishing. 

 While parsley cannot be classed as a crop of great commercial im- 

 portance, it is very generally used, and is almost always grown by 

 market gardeners and in the home garden although seldom grown 

 on a scale extensive enough to class it as a truck crop. 



Botany. Botanically, parsley is closely related to the parsnip 

 and belongs to the family Umbellifercz, but differs from it in that 

 the delicately cut, aromatic leaves are the part chiefly used. Parsley, 

 Apium petroselinum, is a biennial accredited to some part of the 

 Mediterranean region. The first year it produces a dense whorl of 

 radical leaves ; the second it throws up its seed stalk. The seed, 

 which under usual conditions retains its vitality from three to five 

 years, is small, somewhat 3-sided, and of a brownish color. One 

 ounce of seed is allowed for each 150 feet of drill. 



In America, parsley is chiefly used for garnishing and for flavor- 

 ing soups and stews. For these purposes those sorts with fibrous 

 roots and abundant foliage are grown. In Europe a thick-rooted 

 type which produces foliage similar to that of the common sorts, 

 and roots not unlike those of the parsnip, is grown for the same 

 uses. With these sorts the fleshy roots, instead of the leaves, 

 furnish the part used in soups and stews. 



Culture. Although the parsley plant is quite hardy and can be 

 held in hotbeds and greenhouses for more than a year, it is usually 

 treated as an annual. It is almost wholly propagated by seed, al- 

 though it can be increased by division. The seeds are small and 

 are slow to germinate. The crop is therefore seldom sown in the 

 open, but in flats, hotbeds, or cold frames, where congenial con- 

 ditions for the germination of the seed can be maintained. The 

 young plants are delicate and grow slowly at first. For these reasons 

 transplanting from the seed bed to the field is more satisfactory 

 than sowing the seed in place. 



