August 15.
Friday.
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| August 15,2016 |
Pratt is collecting his parsnip seed. This the second or third cutting. It takes three cuttings, the central umbellets ripening first. It takes a sharp knife not to shake out the seeds, and, as it is, enough to seed ten times the ground is lost.
Almost every one is poisoned, says P., by this work. The skin comes off the back of the hand, making tanned hands look white-spotted. This from handling the parsnip in its second year only.
Great rank poisonous-looking and really poisonous parsnips gone to seed.
It is not quite time to cut the carrot seed.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 15, 1856
See August 19, 1860 ("Examine now more at length that smooth, turnip-scented brassica which is a pest in some grain-fields. . . I see it in Minot Pratt’s, with the wild radish . . . ")
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