Turnip

a biennial plant of the mustard family. It is related closely to the cabbage. There are two well marked types, the flat rooted and the long rooted. Very possibly both are variations of the same plant, but the American custom of calling the former a turnip and the latter a rutabaga or Swedish turnip is a convenient one, and is followed by botanists. The grower sows turnip seed late in the spring. A tuft of succulent leaves and a full sized root are produced the first year. Seed stalks and seed pods are produced the second season. Both the turnip and the rutabaga are natives of the warmer or temperate parts of Europe or Asia. In these regions the mature root sheds the leaves on the approach of winter and rests till spring. Several seed stalks then shoot up, branch widely, and bear flowers, succeeded in mid-summer by long, knotted, mustard-like pods containing brown or black seeds. The plant then dies. In the cold climates it is necessary to take up the roots and protect them like potatoes from frost. Occasionally a rutabaga will stand through the winter, thaw out in the spring, and grow. Rutabagas play a large part in the fattening of cattle in northern Europe where the summers are too cool to mature Indian corn. In well prepared soil 1,000 bushels of roots, "neeps," the Scotch call them, are not an uncommon yield per acre.