April 6, 1912.] 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



213 



THE 



Napus was the name for the plant, Rapum 

 distinguished the bulb. Lyte distinguishes 



1 /yf\ ♦ If aisunguisnea tne duio. LyLeui&uu^uiouco ^«^ — _. 



(\Vd III Jirn'H 1 M P the " round Rape or Turnep " as Rapa, him at dessert. 

 IIP \JJlJlUlKlK\K ,, ai Mam i}_ M xr«,rof» »c Vanns. tells how eard 



No. 1,319— SATURDAY, April 6, J9i2. 



the 

 and 



u 



long Rape or Navet " as Napus, 



una. 



CONTENTS. 



Apples in Ontario 



Australia, notes from ... 



Barnes, Mr. G. F.. f re- 

 tirement of 



Books, notices of — 

 The Carnation Year 



Book 



The Modern Culture 

 of Sweet Peas 



Chrysanthemum King 



of Plumes 



Daffodils, prizes lor 

 Leedsii 



Dianthus callizonus ... 



Economic Biologists, 

 Association of 



Egypt, chemical fertili- 

 sers in 



Elms, British 



Fruit buds, birds and ... 



Hafod, Cardiganshire- 

 Irish department of 

 agriculture ... 222 



Iris tuberosa 



Maize crop in Argentina 



Manchester, horticul- 

 ture in 



Market fruit garden, the 



Medal of the North of 

 England Horticul- 

 tural Society 



Obituary— 

 Gow, William 

 Pentland, Francis ... 



Parasitic fungi, the 

 nature of 



Parks, cost of the Royal 



222 

 224 



224 



223 

 223 



227 



221 



227 



224 



222 

 216 

 227 

 214 



, 225 

 227 

 224 



■ 



226 



£18 



224 



231 

 231 



215 

 223 



Plants, new or note- 

 worthy- 

 Hybrid Rehmannias 

 Potatos, drying ... 

 Rosary, the — 

 Cultural notes for 



April ... 



The Orleans Rose ... 

 School gardens, extent 



of... 



Scotland, early flowers 



in 



Scotland, notes from ... 



Shirley Society, the old 

 Societies — 

 Liverpool Hort. 

 Manchester and N. of 

 England Orchid ... 

 Royal Counties Agri- 

 cultural 



Royal Horticultural- 

 Royal Meteorological 

 Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh 



Societe Prancaise 

 d'Hort de Londres 

 I Torquay District Gar- 

 deners 



Strawberries, failure of 



Trees and road tar 

 Tulipa Kaufmanniana.. 



Turnip, the 



Udaipur, the gardens of 

 Violas at Wisley, trial 



of 



Week's work, the 22;), 

 West Indies, notes from 



218 

 221 



The Napus of Turner is explained thus: 



" I have hearde sume cal it in Englishe « u + » + 



a turnepe, and other some a naved or tioned and said to be eaten as whets at 



navet, long rape or navet gentle. Dr. 



on the custom, and Colonel Topham in 1774 

 was amused at Turnips being offered to 



Justice, 20 years earlier 

 tells how gardeners tried to excel <-ach 

 other in having the Early Dutch ready 

 early in May for eating raw. In Humphry 

 Clinker it is a yellow variety that is nien- 



dinner. " They "—the Turnips 



are small 



214 

 214 



223 



227 

 225 

 227 



230 



229 



222 

 227 

 230 



230 



231 



230 

 226 

 223 

 217 

 213 

 222 



226 

 221 



224 



Prior derived Turnip from Terrse Napus, 

 but there seems to be no authority for this 

 beyond his bare assertion, and I am ex- 



and conical, of a yellowish colour, with a 

 very thin skin," and, again, " The Turnips 

 in this country are as much superior in 



tremely doubtful if these two words are sweetness, delicacy, and flavour to those in 

 to be found anywhere in conjunction. England as a Musk-Melon is to the stock 



Lyte mentions " his roote or turneppes," 



of a Cabbage," and it will be remembered 



and discribing the root of Orobanche, calls that Cobbett said of the yellow Scotch 



-- — * - - - Turnip that if it did come from Scotland, 



it 

 therefore, 



turne or pear." Not improbably, 



<< 



turn 



yy 



is another name for 



round, "turn-nepe" being the round Nepe, any rate " ! 



" there is something good that is Scotch at 



The Creel wives of Mussel- 



to distinguish it from the long Nepe or 

 Navet. John Evelyn is the first to spell 

 Turnip 



we do with an " i." 



burgh, like the Newhaven fish wives with 



fish, made the streets of Edinburgh re- 



Gerarde* in sound with their cry, " Neeps like succar! 



_^ s Turnips of Neeps like succar! " Whether the Turnip 



a sm^rariety grown at Hackney and north of the Tweed retains its supremacy is 

 " brought from that village to Cheapside now, I fear, a debatable question. 

 Market, are the best that ever I tasted." It is barely credible that Turnips, as a 



Parkinson's " best kinde is known to be flat field crop, when grown at all, were sown on 

 with a small pigges tail-like roote," and barley stubble in exactly the same manner 



rnip * " ' "" 



214, 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Cattleya Dirce «« Westonbirt variety " ... 

 Gow, William, portrait of the late ... 

 Hafod, Cardiganshire, views at ... ~~ 



Magnolia salicifolia 



Map showing the distribution in England of Ulmus 



sativa — . — 



Medal of the North of England Horticultural Society 



Philadelphia microphyllus, a ilowering spray of 



Rehmannia kewensis 



Strawberry, leaf-spot disease of 



Tuiipa Kaufmanniana — 



226 

 211 

 215 

 223 



216 

 224 

 225 

 218 

 219 

 217 



has a lucid description of Turnips, the 

 yellow from Denmark being preferred to 



THE TURNIP. 



HP HE Turnip, though a common vege- 



I a a a f 



as related by writers on Roman husbandry, 



adds they were very particular to pre- Hartlib showed a better way, but little or 



serve the strain true. Evelyn, in Ace t aria, no progress was made till Tull introduced 



drill culture. When grown in the neigh- 



bourhood of London in fields, the seeds 



all others. The red Bohemian—named by were sown broadcast, and singled with 



Lyte the Bohem— was sown on hot-beds hoes to 6 inches apart. Gardeners in pri- 



for using in salads. For a like purpose vate establishments were permitted to con- 



the stalks of common Turnips when they tract to single them, for which 7s. per acre 

 began to bud were also m request. Ihose 

 running to seed were utilised by taking the 



stalks, peeling and tying them in bundles . improbable that these artists 



and presenting them at table cooked in- Tu * ^ ^ work when the 



stead of Asparagus. Enveloped in paper ^ ^ ^ ^ leffc off whfin the 



was paid. They were so adept at the work 

 that Laurence called them "dextrous 

 artists/' half an acre being a day's work, 



table, is not without its points of coverings, Turnips were also roasted un- niehtingale comraenced her i ay . Cockburn 

 interest. It has a very ancient his- der hot embers and eaten with sugar and of Or miston sowed Turnip " ■"" 



tory, and was esteemed by the Greeks as butter, and they were sometimes mixed probably the first to do s0 in Scotland, but 



well far its physical as 



for its edible with 



properties. The Roman peasantry was 

 fed to a 



many years passed before farmers adopted 



j.l. _ i_- _ mi., a o 3„ ;? ,* ±«^ 



Pliny mentions three distinct sorts, 

 chronicles a root which weighed 40 lbs. 



baked and eaten as bread, even at the the pract i ce . The " Swede " was intro- 

 greatest Person's^ Tables/' A year or duced in 1772 by Dickson of Perth, but 30 



years passed before it was in general culti- 

 vation. Besides being a farmers' root, the 

 ~~urnip 



large extent on its roots. gpreates* rei^u * *-«*«. ~,<=~ - 

 nn« fhrPP H«tin«fe sorts, and two earlier than Evelyn, Donaldson the 



earliest writer on Husbandry in Scot- 



uuruinciee a. iuui wuuai wcigucu •*« *^— • that " the 



Columella reports on the turnip fly to ^ ^^way Tey are niade use of are the roots being delicious cooked and the 



circumvent which the eds were mixed ™ ^ ^J and gtewed with gprouts ^ springj when vegetables are ^ 



TZ^TS^SSi Z hntter and new milk. Yea, some make variably scarce, a good substitute for Sea- 



with soot 



render the sap bitter and distasteful to butter ana new miiK. x^ *»™ --. 

 flip fl v i wviiio thp "Rnmnn n^Hr.iiltnrist bread of them, by mixing them ^ith Oats 



the fly! While 



sowed his Basil and Hemp seed with or 



Barley Meal after they are broken 



variably scarce, a good substitute for Sea- 

 kale. 



A few words in conclusion will show that 



sowed his Basil and Memp seett witn - - ^ j ^^ the Greeks had followers in England who 



abundant curses, he stole out in a state ana sieweu , * discovered in the Turnip important medi- 



auuiluailL Curses, lie Stuic u-uu in a> oiauv rt i?+rv„+U« 



of nudity to sow his Turnip seed,, at the *«» d < 5^™ 1 " T f ftfiSfflit 



same time praying to the gods and ex- manner ot tarts 



In Switzers' Cata- 



claiming: " I sow this for myself and my 



/ 



cinal properties. Langham, in The Garden 

 of Health, that repository of long-for- 

 gotten receipts has no fewer than 29 re- 



i-idiuiiug: ± SOW mi* ±ui mjacii a>iiu mj —*>- * - , T7 ,., -r^ii . "Rr.V»orr,in gotten receipts lias I1U icwa Lliail *v x^- 



neighbour," Turnips being free to every- noted-the Early White Dutch £ohemia, ce R or Turni « Rapes » 



u j ., • c 4-i j 4-;n TTnoknev or Bed : Yellow from bermany, * ° r - ■- - 



body, just as they were in Scotland till UacKney or im , ^ ^ j 



recently. 



and Navew, or long French, and these 



here also represented the plant as a rule, 

 and the roots were "Turneps." Seed^ 



Though Hume's assertion that " It was varieties continued down to last century were also ufcilised; and? besides other uses, 



. ... & _ . . _^ 4.u« ^v,1tt nnmor^ nnp« with the ! exeention ,-, i j a.. «t i.-xx„ 4-i — *«^ 



not till the end of Henry VIII.' s reign 

 that any Salads, Carrots, Turnips, or 

 other edible roots were produced in Eng- 

 land " has been generally accepted as fact, 

 it is known that the historian was mis- 

 taken, all having been cultivated long be- 

 fore that period. The word " Turnip " 

 does not occur till the time of Ed- 



as the only named ones with the exception 

 of the Black-skinned. 



rme 



*t of the food 



the Continent, not only cooked, but raw. 

 Gerarde states that the Welsh also ate the 



they were employed to " beautifie the face 

 and all the body/' for " kibes," whitlows, 

 the gout, headaches, and other complaints. 

 The following is rather drastic : u Seethe 

 Ran* in ovle. and anoint thy head there- 



does not occur till the time of Ed- Turnips as tne iooa oi ^u, nuu. i 

 ward \., but Naep and Navet, the was long a standing joke m England that 



with for the Frensie, and thow shalt either 



roote uncooked, and Gay mentions " sweet s l ee p or die " ! If one happened to be 



"Drinke presently the 



It 



poisoned, then : 



seeds or roots of Turneps." 



It is interest- 



former 

 and 



an 



anglicised Jorm of Napus, Turnips were the . «* _ fruit that the sister i ng to know that a ^med.eine „. made 



still current 



the 



in tne north, 



the latter the Gallic form of the same 

 word were in use centuries earlier. While 



and country produced, and, indeed, they were 



" neare to Linne n from Rapes, etc., 



_ - J~4 __ _ _ HI. J) 



there consumed as a delicacy. Travellers profitable in our Commonwealth, 

 in the 18th century never failed to remark Brotherston. 



very 



E. P. 



