To the farmer turnips are, in various particulars, a most valuable crop. They afford a profitable intervening crop with corn. Both the _tops_ and _roots_ are eaten by sheep. Horses and cattle may be advantageously fed upon the roots during winter; but the milk of cows receives an unpleasant flavour from them. This flavour is also communicated to the butter; but it may be taken off by dissolving a little nitre in spring water, and putting a small tea-cupful of it into about eight gallons of milk, when warm from the cow. Turnips also serve as food for mankind, either boiled or roasted. In the years 1629, 1636, and 1693, during the pressure of a severe famine, bread is stated to have been made of turnips in several parts of England, particularly in the county of Essex. The process was to put the turnips into a kettle over a slow fire, till they became soft; they were then taken out, squeezed as dry as possible, mixed with an equal quantity of flour, and, after having been kneaded with yeast, salt, and a little warm water, were made into loaves and baked. In bread thus made the peculiar taste of the turnip is said to be scarcely perceptible. These roots have been much recommended as sea store, from the possibility, with care, of preserving them for a great length of time uninjured, and from their furnishing an agreeable and wholesome food for sailors, on long voyages. The young and tender _tops_ of turnips, when boiled, afford an agreeable substitute for greens. For the cultivation of turnips a light soil, particularly such as consists of a mixture of sand and loam, is found preferable to rich and heavy land. Turnips are raised from seed, which it has long been the established custom to sow in the month of June. As soon as the young plants have attained a tolerable size, they are hoed, for the purpose of thinning them. In their growth they suffer much by the attacks of slugs, caterpillars, and insects of different kinds, particularly of a small, dark beetle with two longitudinal yellowish stripes (_Chrysomela nemorum_), which is called by farmers the _turnip-fly_. For the destruction of this insect many plans have, at different times, been devised. Turnips are either eaten on the land by cattle, or are drawn out and stacked, or preserved under ground for winter use; and, in this state, they may be kept sound till April. There are several kinds of turnips; but of these the _common white_, or _Norfolk turnips_, and the _Ruta-baga_, or _Swedish turnips_, are the principal. The latter, which indeed constitute a distinct species, are generally of a yellowish colour, and are so hardy as to suffer no injury even from the most intense cold; but their substance is so compact as sometimes to break the teeth of sheep which feed upon them. 189. _The COMMON CABBAGE_ (Brassica oleracea) _is a well-known plant, the original stock of which grows on cliffs by the seaside, in Kent, Cornwall, Yorkshire, and Wales._