Turnips

The turnip (Brassica rapa, Brassica campestris) is a root vegetable in the Cruciferae, or mustard, family and is closely related to the rutabaga (Brassica napobrassica). Turnips were brought to the North American colonies in the seventeenth century but were not widespread until the eighteenth. By the nineteenth century turnips were well established for two purposes—culinary use and farm animal fodder. The latter was popularized by the English politician and land improver, Charles Townshend, called “Turnip Townshend,” who in approximately 1730 developed a system of rotating grain crops with turnips. Because they are a cool weather crop and have a high protein content, turnips are perfect for fattening cattle during the autumn and winter. Forage turnips appear in early farmer’s manuals along with the traditional advisory jingle to sow the seeds “Before the Twenty-Fifth of July, whether it be wet or dry.”