THE PARSNEP AND THE RED BEET. 



651 



' SuBSECT. V. — The Parsnep. 



1433. The parsnep^ Pastinaca sativa, L. (Panais, Fr.)^ is an umbel- 

 liferous biennial, a native of Britain, on calcareous soils in open situations, 

 and withstanding our severest winters. It has been as much changed 

 by culture as the carrot, and like it its roots are highly valued both 

 in horticulture and agriculture. With respect to culinary purposes, they 

 are in season from October till March. They differ from the carrot in 

 being only used in their mature state, and chiefly during winter; form- 

 ing a dish to be eaten to meat or to salt fish ; and they are used in soups, 

 mashed, stewed, and fried. Beer and wine can be made from them, and also 

 a powerful spirit. The parsnep is excellent food for cows, being highly 

 nutritive, and giving to the milk a peculiarly rich and agreeable flavour, 

 resembling that from cows that are fed on the richest old pasture. Hence 

 it should be grown on a large scale by every cottager that has a cow. Only 

 a moderate space is required for them in the gentleman's garden, and they 

 come in in the rotation along with the carrot and the beet. The varieties 

 are few ; the hollow-crowned is best worth cultivating. The Siam variety 

 has a small yellow root of a high flavour, and the turnip-rooted has a round 

 root. 



1434. Propagation and culture, — The seed required for a bed five feet by 

 twenty feet, the plants to be thinned to eight inches' distance every way, is one 

 ounce : and the same for a drill of one hundred and fifty feet ; the seed comes up 

 in eight or ten days. Seldom more than one crop is required, and this is sown 

 in March, in rows eighteen inches apart, the plants being afterwards thinned 

 out to eight inches' distance in the row. Routine culture as in the carrot. 

 The roots are not liable to be injured by frost, and may therefore be left in 

 the ground to be taken up as wanted till February, when they will begin to 

 grow. If parsneps are required after this season, a quantity of roots must be 

 taken up in winter, and stored like those of the carrot, taking care either to 

 cut off the tops, with a slice of the root, or to bury in an ice-cold thatched 

 ridge. The parsnep is seldom attacked by diseases, or by insects. Seed 

 may be saved as in the carrot, and it generally retains its vitality only one 

 year. 



SuBSECT. VI. The Red Beet. 

 1485. The Red Beet., Beta vulgaris L. (Betterave, jPr.), is a chenopodi- 

 aceous fusiform-rooted biennial, a native of the South of Europe on the sea- 

 coast, and cultivated in gardens for its root from the beginning of the seven- 

 teenth century, and probably long before. The roots are boiled and eaten 

 cold, either to meat, especially mutton, by themselves, dressed as sala'l, or 

 in mixture with other salad ingredients ; they form a beautiful garnish, and 

 a very desirable pickle. The thin slices dried in an oven are also used in 

 confectionery, and the leaves may be used as spinach or greens. The roots 

 must be washed and also boiled with all their lateral fibres, and, in short, 

 without any part cut off except the leaves ; because it is found that when 

 the root is wounded in any part, the colour in boiling escapes through the 

 wound. There are several varieties, but the best are the common red heet^ 

 the Castelnauda7-i, with a nutty flavour, and Whitens gigantic dark, a new 

 variety of very great merit. The turnip-rooted is an early variety with the 

 roots round, and the Basano beet has the skin of the root red, and the flesh 

 veined with rose colour, but it is scarcely know n in British gardens. The 



