TURNIP. 
been made a subject of investigation in the case 
of the Swedish turnip, it has, in some degree, 
been very elaborately ascertained in the case of 
the white globe turnip, and may be supposed to 
be not very dissimilar in the case of any of the 
other rough-leaved varieties, or even in the case 
of the swede. Some of the chief facts and de- 
ductions brought out by experiment were that, 
on the 28th of June, the fresh leaves contained 
88°61 per cent. of water and 2°48 of ash, and the 
dried leaves contained 21:8 per cent. of ash,—on 
the 26th of July, the fresh leaves contained 88°46 
per cent. of water and 1°84 of ash, and the dried 
leaves contained 15-95 per cent, of ash,—on the 
30th of August, the fresh leaves contained 86°61 
per cent. of water and 2°39 of ash, and the dried 
leaves contained 17°84 per cent. of ash,—and on 
the 29th of September, the fresh leaves contained 
88°66 per cent. of water and 1:95 of ash, and the 
dried leaves contained 16°31 per cent. of ash; 
that the per-centage of water in the lower part 
of the top is greater than in the upper, decreas- 
ing from 2 to 5 per cent. as we ascend; that the 
average quantity of water in the lowest part 
(90°22 per cent.) of the tops, is nearly 5 per cent. 
greater than in the highest part, (85°42 per 
cent.,) and 10 per cent. greater than the mean 
of the whole green part, including leaves and 
stalks; that the proportion of mineral matter 
in the tops increases with the age of the plant; 
that the average quantity of mineral matter in 
the green part of the turnip is greater by one 
fourth part in the highest than in the lowest 
part; that these averages for the green tops as 
they were gathered, are—for the highest part 
2:19 per cent., for the lowest part 1:75 per cent., 
and for the whole top 1:98 per cent.; that in the 
tops dried at 212° Fahr. the proportion of mine- 
ral matter is greater in the lowest than in the 
highest part, by about one twelfth part,—the 
average for the lowest being 18-21 per cent., for 
the highest 16°84 per cent., and for the whole 
top 17:83 per cent. This difference between the 
relative proportions of mineral or inorganic 
matter in the upper and lower parts of the top 
in their green and dry states respectively, arises 
from the circumstance that the lower part con- 
tains also the largest per-centage of water. 
The Uses of Turnips for Human Food.—The 
common culinary uses of garden turnip are so 
universally known that they do not require to 
be. mentioned. The bulb of the Maltese golden 
turnip, which has an uniform orange colour, a 
perfectly spherical shape, and a fine flavour, is 
sometimes introduced with the dessert instead 
of fruit. The roots of the round black, round 
brown, long black, long brown, small Berlin, 
small long white, and Maltese long white tur- 
nips, are much esteemed on the Continent for 
their peculiar pungency. The bulbs of almost 
all garden turnips, particularly such as possess a 
comparatively high degree of the pleasant and 
characteristic acrimony of the brassica family, 
527 
whenever cooked in any such simple way as to 
be easily digestible by a feeble stomach, are emi- 
nently serviceable to persons who have a ten- 
dency to scrofula, purpura, or any similar dis- 
ease of the circulating system of the skin. 
During a dearth in England in 1629 and 1630, 
‘very good, white, lasting, and wholesome bread, 
was made of boiled turnips, deprived of their 
moisture by pressure, and then kneaded with an 
equal quantity of wheaten flour.’ The scarcity 
of corn in 1693, led the poor of Essex again to 
have recourse to this species of bread. It could 
not, we are told, be distinguished by the eye 
from a wheaten loaf; neither did the smell much 
betray it, especially when cold. During the re- 
cent famine in Ireland consequent on the failure 
of the potato crops, Swedish turnip was much 
recommended for cultivation by the peasantry 
and the small farmers, both as a general substi- 
tute for the potato, and as a special material for 
making cheap bread. One of the most common 
recipes of the day for converting it into bread was 
the following :—Take 8 Ib. of Swedish turnips, 
peeled and weighed raw; put them down to boil 
in a metal pot, and when boiled strain and 
squeeze them well in a cloth, and pound them 
well in the pot; when pounded, squeeze them 
well again in the cloth, for the more you drive 
the contained water out of them, the less will ' 
the bread taste of the turnip; and then take 3 
lb. of home-ground wheaten whole meal, or 4 lb. 
of such wheaten whole meal as is commonly sold 
by huxters, and work it up with the prepared 
turnips, and proceed with the dough in the same 
manner as with any other griddle bread. Buta 
much more refined method than this, and at the 
same time scarcely if at all more costly, and ap- 
plying fully as much to mangel wurzel as to 
Swedish turnip, was recommended, in the fol- 
lowing terms, by the Professor of Chemistry to 
the Royal Dublin Society. “Neither the man- 
gel wurzel nor Swedish turnip can be boiled 
without considerable loss of its nutritive matter, 
and if, after being boiled, the juice is pressed 
out of it, the loss is of course materially increased. 
By steaming these roots, there is much less loss 
of nutritive matter than by boiling them. I 
have tried a number of different methods of 
using these roots, but that which appears to me 
the best, and in which there is no loss of their 
nutritive matter, is the following :—First, wash 
and peel the mangel wurzel or turnip, then grate 
it, and either steam (in tin vessels without holes) 
or stew the grated pulp in a pot for half an hour, 
over a slow fire, occasionally stirring it. When 
it is dressed, use as much wheaten-meal as is ne- 
cessary to make it into cakes without adding any 
water (which will be about its own weight, or a 
little more); bake either on a griddle or in an 
oven. The cakes thus made will be found very 
palatable and nutritious. They may be much 
improved by mixing through the flour a small 
quantity of carbonate of soda and tartaric acid 
