8 se + 
TURNIP. 
Scott’s prize purple-topped swede, was intro- 
duced by Mr. Scott of Southend, near Tranent, 
in East Lothian. It is ox-heart shaped, purple 
above ground, and yellow-fleshed, with a small 
top. 
Laing’s new purple-topped swede is a decidedly 
distinct variety. Its leaves are somewhat like 
those of a lettuce; and are so inserted in the top 
of the root as to give it much the appearance of 
a pine-apple. It grows to a good size, keeps 
well, and bears a very high character among the 
agriculturists of Berwickshire and Northumber- 
land, where it is extensively cultivated. The 
crop when in full leaf has a most beautiful ap- 
pearance. 
The green-topped yellow swede has been longer 
known than the purple-topped, and, since the 
introduction of the latter, has had less attention 
bestowed upon it by cultivators, and has fallen 
somewhat in their estimation; but where the 
same care is taken in selecting the roots grown 
for seed, it may be considered as equal in merit 
to the purple-topped.—Scott’s prize green-topped 
yellow swede, is an improved variety of it, and 
is in no way inferior to the purple-topped. 
Hillyard’s Thorpeland swede, has the appear- 
ance of a true Swedish turnip, and closely re- 
sembles some which were recently raised from 
seed procured from the Botanic Garden at Upsal. 
It is said to be more nutritive, bulk for bulk, 
than some of the largest varieties; but its dwarf- 
ish size, and the impossibility of raising any 
great weight of food per acre from it, must, not- 
withstanding its other merits, be a great obstacle 
to its making its way among the larger sorts 
which now invite the attention of cultivators. 
Cox’s new improved swede, may be considered 
as intermediate in colour between the purple 
and the green-topped sorts. Its roots often at- 
tain a large size, but are rather irregular, and of 
a somewhat coarse-like quality. “Such subva- 
rieties,’ remarks Mr, Lawson, in reference to 
Cox’s, “are frequently of short duration, being 
liable to degenerate when the careful selection 
of the roots to be grown for seed is not attended 
to; and they often only retain the name for such 
time as their seed-stalks are grown by the par- 
ties with whom they originated; and it occa- 
sionally happens, that stocks procured in dif- 
ferent parts by the same means, and known 
under different names, may yet be the same in 
other respects.” 
Varieties of Hybrid Turnip.—Hybrid varieties 
of turnip are obtained either by selecting and 
cultivating seed-stocks of plants which appear 
to have undergone natural cross-impregnation, 
through the agency of insects or the wind, or 
by carefully conducting a process of artificial 
cross-impregnation in the manner practised in 
gardens for obtaining choice new varieties of the 
rare kinds of flowering plants, or by so combin- 
ing the two methods as to intermix turnips of 
different breeds through a series of bloomings in 
order to expose them to natural cross-impregna- 
tion, and then to select from each of the series of 
crops only such plants for seed-stocks as exhibit 
improvement and are similar in character. One 
of the most celebrated and useful and at the 
same time variable of all the hybrids—the well- 
known and generally-esteemed Dale’s hybrid, 
raised by Mr. Robert Dale, of Libberton, West 
Mains, near Edinburgh—was procured by a com- 
plexity of method which may suggest valuable 
hints for guiding the efforts of intelligent agri- 
culturists in search of further improvements. 
The basis of it was a new hybrid, grown by a gen- 
tleman in Berwickshire, and supposed to have been 
obtained by an indefatigable veteran improver of 
turnips in Aberdeenshire. Mr. Dale sowed a few 
ounces of the seed of this hybrid, and found the 
produce to resemble Swedish turnips in shape, 
but to be destitute of most of their superior in- 
trinsic properties. He therefore picked out such 
roots as had most of the yellow appearance, and 
planted them along with some of the best true 
swedes he could find; this he continued to do 
for four successive years; and he afterwards se- 
lected the best roots of the complicatedly impreg- 
nated produce for raising seeds till all the fine 
properties of the variety which now bears his 
name were obtained and became established. 
“ The manner in which this variety was obtained,” 
remarks the narrator of his proceedings, “ was 
not according to the nice rules which horticul- 
turists would have recommended to be adopted ; 
because, as the hybrids were always planted 
along with the Swedish for producing seed, and 
the seed collected promiscuously, that part of the 
seed which was produced from the Swedish 
would be much more nearly allied to that va- 
riety than the seed of the hybrids. But in this 
as in many other instances of improving plants, 
the point is often attained more from accidental 
causes than from the adoption of the rules laid 
down by scientific cultivators. And, although 
all the hybrids may not stand in the same rela- 
tion to the primitive root, the circumstance of 
the raising the seed being now performed solely 
by the hybrids themselves, without the assistance 
as formerly of the Swedish, will always have the 
tendency to assist in modifying and correcting 
any irregularity that may exist.” Every hybrid 
obtained in any such way, in fact, is rather a 
collection of many closely related and intimately 
similar subvarieties than one really homogeneous 
or strictly individual variety ; and yet, through- 
out every crop and in all ordinary circumstances, 
it possesses abundantly sufficient uniformity for 
all practical purposes both of culture and of ap- 
plication. The several hybrids in most estima- 
tion also differ more or less widely from one an- 
other in some or most of their best properties ; 
while all, at the same time, when regarded in 
the aggregate, so combine the characters of Swed- 
ish turnips and of common turnips as to occupy 
a somewhat equable intermediate station be- 
