RARSNEPS. 
81 
three, and sometimes two ranks of beans, leaving intervals of between five 
and six feet between each of the sown rows. In the use of the dibble, and 
in dropping the beans, the women have acquired considerable dexterity. In 
many instances they are followed by children, who drop into each hole made 
by the dibble, after the bean, three or four peas ; the parsnep seed is then 
sown at tne rate of one third to one half of a bushel to the acre. J? — Quciyle'i 
General View of the Norman Islands. 
Use .—The writer above quoted asserts, that, in the island of Jersey, pars¬ 
nep ** is eaten with meat, with milk, and with butter; but not, as is the 
common mode of using it as human food in England, with salt fish, or, as in 
Ireland, together with potatoes. 
“ The next most valuable application of this root is hog-feeding. At first 
it is given to the animal in a raw state, afterwards boiled or steamed, and, 
finally, for a week or fortnight, with bean and oat-meal. A hog treated in 
this way is sufficiently fatted for killing in about six weeks. Its flesh is held 
snperior to that arising from any other food, and does not waste in boiling. 
u Bullocks are also fatted with parsneps in about three months; their 
flesh is here considered of superior flavor to any other beef, and commands, 
on that account, an additional half-penny in the pound on the price. Tc 
milch cows they are also usually given ; on this diet, the cream assumes a 
yellow color. By the accounts here given, it appears, in proportion to the 
milk, to be more abundant, than when the animal is kept on any other food 
whatever. When the cow receives at the rate of thirty-five pounds per day, 
with hay, seven quarts, ale measure, of the milk, produce seventeen ounces 
of butter. It is generally allowed that the flavor of the butter is superior t( 
any other produced in winter. 
“ Geese are sometimes shut up with the hogs to fatten on parsneps, whicn 
they will eat raw. The root is also given boiled; and for a week before 
killing they are fed with oats or barley only. Horses eat this root greedily; 
but in this island it is never given them, as it is alleged that, fed on this food, 
their eyes are injured. About Morlais, horses are not only ordinarily fed on 
parsneps, but they are considered as the best of all food, superior even to 
oats. 7? 
To save seed .—Transplant some of the best roots as early as the frost will 
permit in the spring, two feet asunder inserted over the crown. They will 
produce seed plentifully in autumn 
