|g§ NEW ESCULENT ROOT. 



II. 



On a Variety of the Brassica Napus, or Rape, which has long 

 heen cultivated upon the Continent. By Mr. James Dick- 

 so^,F.L.S.V.P.H.S*, 



Great improve- JL N the report drawn up by our worthy member,T. A. Knight, 

 ^e*^etaWeIb^ Esq., at the request of a Committee of this Society, and 

 culture. printed by their orders, it is remarked, that nature appears 



to have put no limits to the success of our labours in im- 

 proving vegetables, if properly applied: that thus our wild 

 crab has been converted into the golden pippin, and that oqr 

 most delicious plums have originally sprung from the sloe. 

 The vegetable which 1 have now the honour of laying upon 

 3'our table, gentlemen, is one more among many instances 

 of the truth of the above remark; which 1 have quoted, be- 

 cause I think it cannot be too frequently repeated, and in- 

 stilled into the minds of young gardeners. Nature has ^u- 

 doubtedly done much in furnishing our table with a variety 

 of esculents spontaneously, but when we aid her efforts to 

 befriend us, by industry on our part, she, like a kind mother, 

 never disappoints us. Who would suppose, that the hard 

 acrid root of the brassica napus, or common rape, might be 

 rendered so mild and palatable by cultivation, as to be pre- 

 ferred to the common turnip } yet this {las actually been the 

 case, and in France as well as Germany few great dinners are 

 served up without it in one shape or other. 



I am unable to trace its first coming into such common 

 use there; but, as it is distinguished by Caspar Bauhin, 

 ■who published his Pinax in 1671, it must have been well 

 Syaonimes. known at that period. The only synonyms I dare put 

 down as certainly belonging to it are, brassica napus, (3. 

 Linn. Sp. PI, ed. 2, p. 931 ; napus sativa, C. Bauh. Pin. p. 

 95; le navet, Gfl/Zi*" ; Teltow x(.\hen,Germanis; French tur- 

 nip, y4n^/w. 



For above twelve years I have seen this plant brought to 



our own market in Covent Garden, but only by one perfon : 



Use of them, and I believe it has been chiefly sold to foreigners, though, 



* Transact, of the Horticultural Society, Part I, p. 26. 



when 



