This is a winter vegetable, needing hard freezing to refine and bring
out its best quality; the roots should be left to stand where grown
until they can be dug in the spring or through the winter as wanted,
though some may be dug and stored in heaps for use when the ground is
frozen too solidly to admit of digging them. If there is more than are
wanted for table use, there should be no delay in getting them dug and
marketed as early in the spring as possible, for when they begin to
sprout and grow, they very soon become woody and unfit to eat. A row
should be sown in the garden at the same time as the onions, beets,
etc., are planted. It is best to sow the seed quite thickly; by thickly
I mean one seed every inch or so; when the young plants are about three
inches high they should be thinned out to six inches apart in the row,
care being taken to leave only one plant in a place, as, if two are
left, they will spoil the symmetrical shape of the roots by growing
against each other. In planting the seed I always try to run it in
between two rows of beets, onions, lettuce, or other early crop, thus
working it with the wheel hoe while small, and when the other crops
have been taken off there is room to work it with the cultivator, which
is run as close to the rows and as deeply as possible, so that the
roots may attain the largest size. In digging the roots when the ground
is frozen hard and is impenetrable to the spade, I use a long iron post
digger with a steel blade.
[Illustration: IMPROVED GUERNSEY PARSNIP.]