THE TURNIP. 



647 



feet or four feet apart, and the plants a foot distant in the row. The tubeis 

 may either he taken from the plants as wanted, or the crop dug up and 

 housed in the manner of potatoes. No plant in the whole catalogue of 

 culinary vegetables requires less care in its culture. It very seldom flowers, 

 but by destroying the tubers as they appear, it might doubtless be made to 

 produce seed, by means of which some improved varieties might possibly be 

 obtained. 



SuBSECT. III. — The Turnip. 



1419. The Turnip, Brassica Rapa i., is a cruciferous biennial, a native 

 of Britain, of no value in its wild state, but so greatly changed by culture 

 as to become one of our most useful culinary and agricultural vegetables. 

 It was cultivated by the Romans, but was little known about London till 

 the beginning of the l7th century. The use of the root in broths, soups, 

 stews, and entire or mashed, is general in all temperate climates, and also 

 the use of the tender radical and stem leaves, and the points of the shoots, 

 when the plant is coming into flower, as greens. The seedling plants, 

 when the rough leaf is beginning to appear, like those of all others of the 

 Brassica family, are used in small saladhig. The earliest crop of turnips 

 comes into use about the end of May, or beginning of June, and a succession 

 is kept up throughout the summer by subsequent sowings ; and turnips may 

 be had through the winter, partly from the open garden and partly from 

 roots stored up, in the manner of potatoes. Hence a large portion of the 

 kitchen-garden is devoted to this crop. A well-grown turnip has a large, 

 smooth, symmetrical bulb, a small neck, and a small root or tail, with few 

 fibres, except near its lower extremity. In the rotation the turnip follows 

 the potato, the leguminous family, or any crop not cruciferous. 



1420. Varieties. — The early Dutch, white, small, and if sown towards 

 the end of March or the beginning of April, will be fit for use towards the 

 end of May ; the Stone, white, larger, and adapted for successional crops till 

 winter. Scotch yellow, syn. garden yellow, excellent for winter use ; the 

 Swedish, syn. Rutabaga, greenish- yellow, of excellent flavour, but requires 

 a great deal of boiling ; it will keep either in the open garden till March, 

 when its tops will make excellent greens, or in the root- cellar, or buried 

 in a thatched ridge till turnips come again. This variety differs from all 

 the other kinds of turnip in admitting of being transplanted, and yet bulbing 

 nearly as well as if sown where it is finally to remain. The other varieties 

 may be transplanted, provided the very extremity of the tap root is pre- 

 served uninjured, which is done by using a transplanter (fig. 32, in p. 185), 

 or by having part of a row of plants sown over a layer of compact rotten 

 dung. The point of the tap root stops at the dung, and branches into it, 

 and the plant can thus be taken up along with the dung without injury . 

 The Maltese, syns. yellow Maltese, golden Maltese, is a very good, small, 

 yellow, much flattened, winter turnip. The Teltow, syn. French turnip ; 

 yellow, small, long-rooted like a large radish, but of most excellent flavour, 

 always used with the rind on, in which the flavour resides ; neither fit to be 

 eaten boiled alone or raw ; but two or three of them in seasoning will give 

 a higher flavour than a dozen of other turnips. This variety is raucli 

 cultivated on the Continent, though neglected in England ; but in our ophiion 

 it ought to be in every suburban garden. 



1421. Culture. — The turnip, with the exception of the Rutabaga, can only 



