THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 93 



dressing or in any other way preferred. vSuch a dish i? a great 

 improvement upon the old fashioned dandehon greens. The 

 time-honored custom of using a kitchen knife for digging 

 the p'ants may be abandoned. A spade is much better. 



Mustard as a Pot-Herb. — The entire cress family to 

 which the mustards belong, have certain qualities that make 

 them eminently fitted for the table. We have but to recall the 

 fact that the water-cress, turnip, radish, cauliflower, kale, cab- 

 bage, brussels sprouts, horseradish and pepper-grass also be- 

 long to this family to realize how useful it is. Some species, 

 however, have become troublesome weeds, for instance wild 

 mustard or charlock (Brassica sinapistnim). An acquaintance 

 of the editor's whose garden is badly infested with this weed 

 has made a virtue of necessity by setting apart the worst cor- 

 ner of the garden for a mustard bed and regularly harvesting 

 the crop which is cooked like any other pot-herb. There is 

 an old saying that "one year's weed makes seven years seed" 

 meaning that it takes seven years to get rid of the seedlings 

 from one crop of weeds. This particular garden spot seems 

 to have had several years weed to judge from the number of 

 seedlings, but the owner counts this an advantage and looks 

 for a supply of palatable greens for the entire summer. The 

 charlock is especially harmful to grain fields in this coun- 

 try but if we should all begin eating it, it would doubtless 

 soon be as difficult to raise and develop as many insect and 

 fungous foes as any other inhabitant of the garden. 



