Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2012
Last year our bed of garden parsnips turned out so badly in consequence of the protracted drought of the season that most of them were not worth digging; thinking, however, that we might as well get some seed from them asthey were a good variety, we left them where they were for the winter. When spring came they looked beautifully fresh and green, and soon grew most luxuriantly, sending up tall stems and producing huge umbels of flowers. There was a grand prospect of a fine crop of seed, and we began to promise supplies of it to some of our neighbors, who complained that their's was not satisfactory,—all, indeed, looked fair and promising till the last week in June, when “a change came O'er the spirit of our dream !” The fine umbels of flowers began to look rather unhappy.