l66 THE BOOK OF USEFUL PLANTS 



Turnips are first cousins to the cabbages, as the 

 flowers and seeds plainly show. The flavor, too, 

 calls attention to the kinship. Wild turnips were 

 cultivated thousands of years ago to make their 

 roots larger and more tender. The different 

 shapes were later in being developed. White and 

 yellow turnips are the two colors grown. This 

 refers only to the flesh. The skin may be of these 

 colors, or red, gray, or black. Varieties grown for 

 human food are sweet and tender, if they are not 

 checked in growth by drought or lack of tilling. 

 Field turnips, raised for cattle, are usually coarser, 

 not so well-flavored, nor so tender. But all have 

 a higher food value than potatoes, because they 

 have less starch and more flesh-forming elements. 



The turnip is not a fleshy root, like the sweet 

 potato, nor a fleshy stem, like kohlrabi, but a 

 combination of root and stem. Notice the clus- 

 tered leaves at the top. They are attached to the 

 shortened stem of the plant, which is called the 

 " crown. " This stands at the surface of the 

 ground and performs all the stem duties, the part 

 below ground doing duty as the root of the plant. 



The English farmer sets more store by his turnip 

 crop than the American farmer, and it is rather 

 hard to understand why. The Cornell Experi- 

 ment Station raised 25 tons an acre of cattle 



