the PARSNIP: A genus of the dignya order, belonging to the pentandra clas of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the 45th order, Umbellate. The fruit is an elliptical compressed plane; the petals are involuted and entire. There are only two species of this genus; the principal of which is the pastinaca sativa, or garden-parsnip; which is an exceeding fine succulent root. It is to be propagated by sowing the seeds in February or March, in a rich mellow soil, which must be deep dug, that the roots may be able to run deep without hindrance.

It is a common practice to sow carrots at the same time, upon the same ground with the parsnips; and if the carrots are designed to be drawn young, there is no harm in it. The parsnips, when they are grown up a little, must be thinned to a foot distance, and carefully kept clear of weeds. They are finest tasted just at the season when the leaves are decayed: and such as are desirous to eat them in spring should have them taken up in autumn, and preserved in sand. When the seeds are to be saved, some very strong and fine plants should be left four feet distance; and towards the end of August, or in the beginning of September, the seeds will be ripe: they must then be carefully gathered, and dried on a coarse cloth. They should always be sown the spring following; for they do not keep well.

Hints have been given and experiments made by agricultural societies, respecting parsnips, in order to raise them for winter food to cattle. It has long been a custom in some parts of Brittany, to sow parsnips in the open field for the food of cattle; as we are informed by the first volume of the Transactions of a Society instituted in that province, for the encouragement of the economical and commercial interests of their country. "It is of great importance (say they) that parsnips should be universally cultivated; because they afford an excellent and wholesome food for all kinds of cattle during the winter, and may be used to great advantage to fatten them. Our hogs have no other food in all that season, and our bullocks and oxen thrive well upon it. Our cows fed with parsnips give more milk than with any other winter fodder, and that milk yields better butter than the milk of cows nourished with any other substance. Our horses fatten with this food; though some pretend that it renders them less mettlesome, and hurts their legs and eyes. Cattle eat these roots raw at first sliced lengthwise;

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(f) It hath been confidently asserted by some historians, that James was, during his whole life, struck with terror upon the sight of a drawn sword; which was the reason of his great unwillingness in bestowing the honour of knighthood. For at this juncture, he had such a tremor upon him, that instead of laying the sword upon the shoulder of the person to be knighted, he frequently would be observed almost to thrust the point of it into the face of the party; which occasioned those about him to afflit him in the direction of his hand. Pastophori lengthwise; and when they begin not to relish them, they are cut in pieces, put into a large copper, pressed down there, and boiled with only so much water as fills up the chasms between them. They then eat them very greedily, and continue to like them." See PAXAX and OPOPAANAX.