The turnip is such an easy crop to grow that the gardener would have a snap with it if it were not for the snap that the root maggot has. It is a hardy, quick-growing crop, requiring a cool, short season and a moist soil. The turnip is so hardy that the herbage can bear considerable cold without real injury, so that when grown for winter use it is left standing in the field until the black frosts; but the roots will not stand such hard freezing as parsnips or salsify. Turnips should be planted in moist, rich soil to insure quick sprouting, because their chief value as food is the result of rapid growth. Like the radish, the turnip, if it grows slowly, is likely to be tough, woody and stringy. True turnip has soft, white flesh (sometimes the boys eat it raw) and the roots are flatly rounded, while the leaves are rough and hairy. The seed is sown as soon as the soil can be got ready in the spring for the early crop, and as late as the last week in July in the Northern States, or the middle of August in the Middle States, for a fall crop. They are ready for the table in six to ten weeks. Turnips are planted from 1 to 1½ inches deep in drills from 10 to 18 inches apart; one ounce of seed for every 200 to 300 feet, or one pound to the acre. Plants should be thinned until they stand three or four inches apart, and later, as the roots are pulled, a foot of space will allow of full development. Turnips suffer so from root maggot, that where the land has become infested with this pest, it is better not to try to grow them until the insects are starved out, because the only effective treatment that we have found so far is to inject bisulphide of carbon into the soil, which costs too much for turnip crops. PARSNIPS. Unless your preparation-tillage has been thorough, there will be no good parsnips for you. They require cool, very deep soil in excellent tilth to make good roots a foot long, straight, clean and tapering. A lumpy or shallow soil makes the roots branchy, and of little market value. Parsnips are usually sown in drills, far enough apart to let the wheel-hoe in; sow thickly and then thin out the rows, leaving plants about six to eight inches apart. We have to sow thickly because some seeds may be bad, for parsnip seed does not retain its life for more than two seasons. An ounce of fresh seed will do for 200 to 250 feet of drill, or about four pounds to six pounds to the acre.