XXVIII 
THE TURNIP CULTIVATES ITSELF 
X pie plant like a turnip, in 
order to accomplish a given 
end, is smart enough to lay 
down a campaign that runs 
through two years and then 
to stick to it and work it out! 
i 
When the gardener plants 
SN’T IT ODD that a sim- 
turnip seed, cultivates the resulting plants, cuts off the 
tops and eats them for greens, and finally, in the autumn, 
pulls up the great, round turnips and stores them as food 
for the family, he may not realize that he is doing some¬ 
thing very much like what the plant itself does. 
This first year’s growth of a turnip does not serve the 
purpose that the plant has in mind. It has started from 
the seed and sent out a handsome tuft of leaves. These 
leaves out in the sunshine are the plant’s food factory. 
They take out of the air elements with which they make 
sugar or starch to store away in this root. 
Throughout the summer they store this food much as 
the squirrel might store nuts. Then in the autumn the 
top lies down without ever having made seed. This root, 
however, sits in the ground and nurses the spark of life 
through the winter. When spring comes again, it sends 
up a stalk. It does not pay so much attention to develop¬ 
ing its cluster of leaves as it did the year before. It al- 
56 
