TURNIP, Brassica rapa (see BRASSICA), a biennial plant, with lyratc hispid leaves;' the upper part of the root becoming, especially in cultivation, swollen and fleshy. It is a native of Europe and the temperate parts of Asia, growing in borders of fields and waste places. It is commonly regarded as a native of Britain, although in most cases of its being found apparently wild, it maybe doubted if it has not derived its origin from cultivated varieties. It has been tom* cultivated, and is to be found in every garden of the temperate and cold parts of the world as a culinary esculent; it is also extensively grown in fields for feeding cattle and sheep. It was cultivated in India long before it could have been introduced by Europeans, and is common there in gardens and about villages. The cultivated varieties are very numerous. In them, the upper part of the root assumes a globose, oblong, or roundish depressed form. Sonic are common to the garden and the farm, and sonic of the largest kinds attain such a size as to weigh :20 or 25 lbs. Although the turnip is of great value for feeding cattle, and the introduction of it into general field-culture was one of the greatest improvements ever effected in the husbandry of Britain, it is not very nutritious, no less than 90 to 90 parts of its weight actually consisting of water. Garden turnins are sown from the end of Mareh to the end of August; field turnips generally in June, it being requisite that they should not be sown so soon as to incur a risk of their throwing up flower-stems in the first year, which, when it takes place, prevents in a great measure the swelling of the root, and renders it course and fibrous. In the garden cultivation of turnips, the root is generally intended for use in the first year. In dry weather the plants are apt to throw up flower-stems, and so disappoint the hope of the gardener; which is also the case if the seed is sown too early in spring. Moist cloudy weather is most favorable. Garden turnips are sown, and allowed to grow, much closer than field-turnips; being gradually thinned out, and the thinnings used even when a small size. The varieties both of garden and field tur nips are very numerous. The garden turnips arc generally of comparatively small size, more rapid in growth, and more dclicate.—The SWEDISH TunNIP, or BETA BAOA, which
was introduced into cultivation in Britain, from the north of Europe, more recently than the common turnip, and has proved of very great value to the farmer, is regarded' by some botanists as a variety of the same species, and by some as a variety of brassica napus, but more generally as a variety of B. campestris, a species common in corn-fields and sides of ditches in Britain and the north of Europe.
The cultivated turnip grows best in a rich free soil. The mode of culture varies with the soil. Where the soil is light and dry, a smaller amount of plowing, harrowing, and drilling is necessary than on stiff soils. The turnip is not well suited to clay soils, although it is often grown on them. A complete pulverization of the soil is requisite before the sowing of the seed. On light soils, a crop of turnips generally succeeds wheat or oats. Turnip-land is generally made up in raised drills, by the plow, and the seed is sown by the drilling machine, on the top of the narrow ridges, which are about 27 in. apart. Small doses•of guano, super-phosphate of time, crushed bones, or other such manures, produce great crops of turnips. They seem to act chiefly while the plant is young; and when it is further advanced, it derives nutriment from the soil, and even from the subsoil, by deeply penetrating roots, and from the atmosphere by its large leaves. See BONES AS The young plants are thinned out by the hand-hoe, to a foot or upward apart, and the ground is stirred and carefully kept clean by the plow or horse-hoe. The turnip-crop is thus of great use in clearing the land of weeds. In many places part of the crop is eaten on the ground by sheep, which are confined to a small part of the field by means of movable fences. It is common to leave one of each three rows of turnips for this purpose, the other two rows being carried to the farm-yard for feeding cattle, or stored. Turnips are stored either in a house or in conical heaps, covered with their own leaves, or with straw and earth. They are sometimes protected from frost by being earthed up in rows by the plow. Some kinds are much more easily injured by frost than others; the Swedish turnips least of all.