August 15
Friday. P. M. — To Minot Pratt's.
 August 15, 2016 |
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 July 18, 1852 ("The carcass of a cow which has recently died lies on the sandy shore under Fair Haven, close to the water. Perhaps she was poisoned with the water parsnip, which is now in flower and abounds along the side of the river."); See also 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.")
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 July 18, 1852 ("The carcass of a cow which has recently died lies on the sandy shore under Fair Haven, close to the water. Perhaps she was poisoned with the water parsnip, which is now in flower and abounds along the side of the river."); See also 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.")
August 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 15
Parsnips gone to seed –
both poisonous-looking and
really poisonous.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Poisonous parsnip
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau"A book, each page written in its own season,out-of-doors, in its own locality.”~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2026
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560815
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