Our viands

with brandy, to stimulate the appetite. The Maltese golden turnip, which is of a beautiful orange colour and quite round, is frequently eaten as fruit. The Swedish turnip — commonly known as the swede — is principally cultivated for cattle, but there is a small yellow variety grown in Scotland, which is there much esteemed as a vegetable, but is never seen in the London market, although far superior in flavour to the turnip commonly sold. It is recorded that in the years 1629 and 1630, when there was a dearth in England, 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 into what was known as turnip bread ; and the same substitute for wheat was used again in Essex in 1693, when there was a scarcity of corn. At present there is no temptation to adulterate bread with turnips, but probably bread thus made would be much more wholesome than that which now makes its appearance artificially whitened with plaster of Paris and alum. Turnip tops are much esteemed as a vegetable, but few people know that the long, white shoots of turnips or swedes which have been pitted, may be cooked, and rival sea-kail in flavour. We remember a use for the swede also not gener- ally known, which is to cut a swede in slices like a loaf of bread, sprinkle each slice with brown sugar, placing the slices again in their order, and allowing them to stand for some hours. The juice which runs from it is reckoned by country people an excellent remedy for a cough. Next to the turnip, the carrot probably ranks highest in culinary estimation. Although, like the turnip, it seems ROOTS 221 to have been only introduced into this country by the Flemings, in the reign of Elizabeth, it made its way into public favour much more quickly than the turnip, and in the reign of James the First, the foliage was used by the ladies to adorn their headdresses. The graceful leaf is still often seen in bouquets, and we are told this simple decoration may be obtained even in winter, by cutting off the thick end of the carrot and placing it in a shallow pan of water, when a crown of delicate leaves will soon appear. The carrot is not so extensively cultivated as food for cattle as the turnip, although eaten by them with much relish, the horse being extremely fond of it, and its use is said to be particularly beneficial in preserving and restoring the wind of horses. Pigs, also, are very fond of carrots, and fatten very quickly upon them ; nevertheless, the turnip is more favoured by the agriculturist, perhaps because more pro- ductive, although we are told that eat Parlington, in Yorkshire, the stock of a farm, consisting of twenty working horses, four bullocks, and six milch cows, were fed from the end of September to the beginning of May on the carrots produced from three acres of land, with a very small quantity of hay, and thirty hogs were fattened on the refuse left by the cattle.' If this account can be relied on, we wonder that farmers do not cultivate the carrot more largely, but they seem to prefer beet and mangold wurtzel —which latter is said to produce the largest roots and the most weighty crop in a given space of land, whilst beetroot is credited with improving the quantity and quality of milk in cows.