ROOTS AND TUBERS WE EAT 167 



turnips in 1904. The soil was a good loam, well 

 cultivated. This crop was harvested four months 

 after the seed was sown, and the ground was clear 

 for another crop. This is certainly a satisfactory- 

 return for the investment of money, time, and 

 labor. 



Often farmers prefer to leave the turnips in the 

 ground for stock to crop through the open, mild 

 winter, or even to dig through snow. The whole- 

 some green food is so craved by cattle toward 

 spring. Sheep are especially fond of turnips, and 

 they like to dig for them, too. 



In digging turnips to store for the winter, farm- 

 ers have the leafy tops chopped off before the roots 

 are buried in sand or boxed in the airy root cellar. 

 Delicious "turnip salad" is made of the tender 

 sprouting tops of stored roots, late in winter. 

 Young turnips are also used, tops and all, as a pot 

 herb. 



Nobody knows' when the wild turnip came into 

 cultivation. But we do know that the Spanish 

 explorers brought them across the sea and estab- 

 lished them in Mexico in 1586. They came, too, 

 with the earliest settlers of New England and 

 Virginia. Some early observer wrote that the 

 Jamestown colony raised better turnips than were 

 raised in England, whose gray skies and moist, 



