630 PRACTICE OF GARDENING. Part III. 



attending the cultivation of the navet is, that it requires no manure whatever ; any soil that is poor and 

 light, especially if sandy, suits it, where it seldom exceeds the size of one's thumb or middle finger ; in 

 rich manured earth, it g>-ows much larger, but is not so sweet or good in quality." {Justice and Dickson.) 



3707. Taking the crop and preserving it by housing. " In the successive crops, begin to draw as above 

 in a thinning order, that such others as are coming forward may have room to enlarge in succession ; by 

 which means a regular supply will be procured till March or April of the second season ; specific sorts 

 being sufficiently hardy to continue good throughout our ordinary winters. But of the winter crops for 

 the table, draw a portion occasionally in November, December, or whenever there is an appearance of 

 the frost setting in severe. Cut the tops off close, and house the roots in some lower shed or cellar, laid in 

 sand, ready for use while the ground is frozen." Instead of cutting the top and roots close off, some prefer 

 leaving about an inch of the top, and the whole of the root ; and, when the bulbs are kept in a sufficiently 

 cool store, this seems preferable, as more likely to retain the sap. (Abercrombie.) 



3708. Turnip-tops. These are to be gathered from among the earliest spring-produced leaves, either 

 from the crown, or flower-stalk. They are equally good from any of the varieties, and less acrid from 

 those of the Swedish. Sometimes very late sowings are made in September and October, which never 

 bulb, but which are preserved entirely for thin produce, as greens in spring. 



3709. Field-turnips. Where a family can be supplied from the field, the roots will always be found of a 

 better flavor than those produced in the garden ; and the same remark applies to all the brassica tribe, 

 excepting the cauliflower and broccoli, and to potatoes and most tuberous roots. 



3710. To save seed. " Either leave, in the spring, some of the best sound roots of the 

 winter-standing crop, or leave, in May or June, a part of the spring-sown crop of the 

 same year : or, to be more certain of good kinds, transplant, in November or February, 

 a quantity of full-grown well-shaped roots of the autumn or winter crop, into large, 

 deepish drills, two feet asunder ; inserting the bottom fibre into the nether ground, and 

 the main root fully to the bottom of the drill ; and earth well over. The plants will 

 shoot in large branchy stalks in summer, and ripen seed in July or August." 

 (Abercrombie.) It is preferable, however, to procure turnip-seed, as indeed that of 

 most other vegetables, from the regular seedsmen ; as the seed-farmers have oppor- 

 tunities of keeping the sorts distinct, which cannot be had within the precincts of a 

 walled garden. 



3711. Insects and diseases. (See Process in Sowing, supra.) The club or anbury is the 

 principal disease to which turnips in gardens are liable, for which we know of no palli- 

 ative but good culture, as turnips cannot be transplanted like the cabbage tribe. (See 

 Sect. I. Subsect. 8.) 



Subsect. 4. Carrot. Daucus carota, L. (Eng. Pot. t. 1174.) Pent. Dig. L. 

 and Umbelliferce, J. Carotte, Fr. ; Gelbe Rube, Ger. ; and Carota, Ital. 



3712. The carrot is a hardy biennial, and common in many parts of Britain, in sandy 

 soils, and by road-sides. It is known in many places by the name of bird's nest, from 

 the appearance of the umbel when the seeds are ripening. The leaves are pinnatifid 

 and much cut : the plant rises to the height of two feet, and produces white flowers in 

 June and July, succeeded by rough, hispid seeds, which ripen in August. The root of 

 the plant, in its wild state, is small, dry, sticky, of a white color, and strong-flavored ; 

 but the root of the cultivated variety is large, succulent, and of a red-yellow, or pale 

 straw-color. 



3713. Use. It is used in soups and stews, and as a vegetable dish. Parkinson 

 informs us, that in his day, ladies wore carrot-leaves in place of feathers. In winter, an 

 elegant chimney ornament is sometimes formed, by cutting off a section from the head or 

 thick end of a carrot containing the bud, and placing it in a shallow vessel with water. 

 Young and delicate leaves unfold themselves, forming a radiated tuft, of a very hand- 

 some appearance, and heightened by contrast with the season of the year. 



3714. The varieties of the carrot in common cultivation are 



Large red, or field carrot; grows to a . Orange carrot; large, long root, of an I small early crop. Also for shallow- 

 large size, and is chiefly cultivated 1 orange color ; best sort for the main 1 soils 



in fields and in farmers' gardens for crop 1 Late horn ; same characteristics ; but 



coloring butter I Early horn ; short, smaller root ; for a suited for a late crop. 



3715. Christie enumerates the following varieties, as having been grown in the garden 

 of the Horticultural Society, some of which are foreign sorts newly introduced : 



Born carrott. Early red, common early, long horn I red, purple ; and the altringham, or superb, originally 



Long carrots. White yellow, long yellow, long orange, long | from Cheshire. (Hort. Trant. vol. iv. p. 388.) 



3716. Soil. The carrot requires a light mellow soil, mixed with sand, which should be dug or trenched 

 one or two spades deep, breaking well all the lumpy parts, so as to form a porous bed, and an even sur- 

 face. The orange and red sorts, on account of their longer roots, require a soil proportionally deeper than 

 the horn. 



3717. Seed estimate, and sowing. The seeds have numerous forked hairs on their borders, by which 

 they adhere together, and therefore should, previously to sowing, be rubbed between the hands, and 

 mixed with dry sand, in order to separate them as much as possible. They are also very light, and there- 

 fore a calm day must be chosen for sowing ; and the seeds should be disseminated equally, and trodden in 

 before raking. Previously to sowing, if convenient, the seed should be proven, by sowing a few in a pot, 

 and placing it in a hot-bed or hot-house, as it is more frequently bad than most garden-seeds. For a bed 

 four and a half feet by thirty, one ounce will be requisite, and the same for one hundred and fifty feet of 

 drill-row. . . .. . ........ 



3718. Times of sowing. To have early summer carrots, sow on a warm border in the beginning of 

 February ; or, to have them still more forward, sow in a moderate hot-bed, giving copious admissions of 

 air. In the open garden, " begin with the early horn in the last fortnight of February, or first week of 

 March, as dry, fine, and open weather may occur. The first-sown beds should be assigned a favorable 

 situation, and covered for a time with haulm. Follow with the orange in the first fortnight of March, 



