240 TKANSACTIONS OF THE 



that he makes public his newly discovered mode of planting 

 seeds — more particularly Indian corn. The method is one on 

 which I have practised forty years, and merely consists in placing 

 the seed very nearly if not quite on the surface. Corn so planted 

 is apt to lay its first leaves almost horizontally, and show vigor 

 immediately, instead of coming up a thin yellow spindle, like a 

 yellow quill. I have always found my crop excellent when its 

 infancy was of the first description. 



[Journal de la Societe Imperiale et Centrale D'Horticulture. Paris, March 1857.] 



Mous. J. G. Meyer of Ulm, on an improved parsnip, (Garten- 

 flora.) 



NEW PARSNIP AMELIORATED. 



This new variety of (Pastinaca Sativa,) has been advantageously 

 cultivated for many years in Jersey, and merits a distinguished 

 rank among root crops. The parsnip is valuable for its stand- 

 ing freezing and bad weather so well, when almost all the other 

 roots suffer more or less, and because we can leave them all safe 

 in the ground until we want them. Properly cultivated they 

 always leave a crop equal to that of the giant carrot. They 

 should stand in rows, from seven to nine inches apart. This pars- 

 nip is shaped like the carrot, which is seldom less than seven 

 inches in circumference, while this new parsnip is from fourteen 

 to eighteen icches round, by sixteen to twenty inches long. The 

 horse is fond of it; hogs prefer it to anything we give them, and 

 they fatten quick; cows who feed on it do not give so much milk; 

 they grow very fat, and their cream yields butter of excellent 

 taste. The Jersey people are convinced that cattle fed with 

 these parsnips fatten in half the time necessary when fed on 

 potatoes. Good brandy is distilled from these parsnips. We 

 have also a new giant beet, which grows mostly out of ground. 

 We have also a new white transparent carrot, very large. It has 

 a more agreeable taste than most other carrots, and is not quite 

 so sweet. When cooked it peels like the potato. It yields a 

 greater crop than others, and may be sowed thicker than other 

 carrots without harm to the crop. It is as good for the table as 

 it is for the stable, and therefore suited both to the garden and 

 the farm. 



