No flower that breathes on earth has been made to produce so many varieties of form, complexion, and name as this homely root.

It would be an interesting and instructive enterprise, to array all the varieties of this queen of esculent vegetables which Europe and America could exhibit, face to face with all the varieties which the dahlia, geranium, pansy, or even the fern has produced, and then see which has been numerically the most prolific in diversification of forms and features.

It should gratify a better motive than curiosity to trace back the history of other roots to their aboriginal condition.

Types of the original stock may now be found, in waste places, in the wild turnip, wild carrot, parsnip, etc.
"Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little," it may be truly and gratefully said, these roots, internetted with the very life-fibres of human sustenance, have been brought to their present perfection and value.

The great governments and peoples of the world should give admiring and grateful thought to this fact.