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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



tritions of food staples. The tender leaves when well 

 cooked and daintily served are far superior to either 

 spinach or kale. It will be found to add a spic_v flavor to 

 them if the crisp and tender leaves of the common horse- 

 radish, which grows in every country kitchen garden, is 

 cooked with the dock. After the cooked dock has become 

 cold it makes a splendid salad when served with either 

 French or mayonnaise dressing, the slight bitterness it 

 possesses being very palatable. This dock has the long, 

 curly leaf, which distinguishes it from the thick-leaved 

 dock which is not edible. 



Another familiar weed which has been promoted to the 

 ranks of edible vegetables is the common leek : it has 

 very wholesome properties and an agreeable flavor as 

 well. It is used very much as are onions and chives in 

 soups, salads and in combination with other vegetables. 

 and both the leaves and bulbs may be used. And the 

 housewife who has none of these things at hand and yet 

 wishes to give zest to a dish which is lacking w-ithoui 

 them, mav go into the field and pluck some wild garlic 

 leaves and use them, for it will impart much the same 

 flavor. The French and Italian cook prefers it to the 

 onion or leek. 



The common sorrel or sour grass is a well-known weed 

 in all parts of the United States ; it has been cultivated by 

 some Americans who have seen its luxuriance in the gar- 

 dens of their French cousins, and tasted it in some of the 

 ways their German neighbors use it. A most delicious 

 soup is made by mixing one pint of sorrel leaves, one 

 onion minced, a few lettuce leaves, spinach or celery 

 chopped fine, a little salt, pepper and nutmeg, and putting 

 the whole in a pan in which a tablespoonful of good drip- 

 pings, olive oil, or butter has been well heated. Cover 

 and steam in their own juices about fifteen minutes and 

 then add a cupful of milk in which has been mixed two 

 tablespoonfuls of flour and one egg, well beaten. When 

 incorporated with the rest of the mixture, add three 

 pints of boiling water and cook until smooth and slightl\' 

 thickened. Just before serving add another cup of hot 

 milk. Another dish found in many Dutch families is made 

 by chopping two quarts of sorrel, a head of lettuce, half 



a bunch of chevril, and a sprig of parsley together and 

 heating in a stewpan until the vegetables wilt, then sea- 

 son with butter, salt and pepper, and thicken with the 

 yolks of two eggs beaten with a half cupful of cream 

 and set in the oven to finish cooking. Sorrel may be 

 eaten by itself as a salad or mixed with other leaves and 

 things. It is a little too sour by itself unless one leaves 

 the vinesrar or lemon from the dressinsr. 



WILD MUSTARD, WHICH CAN TAKE THE PLACE OF WATER- 

 CRESS OR LETTUCE. 



DOCK, A VEGETABLE OUTLAW, SUPERIOR TO SPIXACH 

 OR I-CiiLE. 



Thoreau. when he lived in a hut at the edge of Walden 

 Pond, found that purslane, or "pursley," boiled in a little 

 salted water, with a dish of rice, gave him sufficient food 

 for a noonday meal. Purslane is one of our commonest 

 weeds, growing not only by the roadside, but also in every 

 garden and yard. It is very good when boiled and served 

 with a little French dressing, or it may be added to stews 

 and made into sauce to serve with boiled salted beef. 



Lamb's quarter, a weed common to both America and 

 Europe, is found to be a most nourishing vegetable. It 

 grows in waste places where the ground is rich and moist. 

 When cultivated in the garden it grows very large stems 

 and succulent leaves. It may be cooked like spinach 

 and other greens and may be served as a salad if chopped 

 after being boiled, pressed into small cups to mould and 

 when cold served with mayonnaise dressing. 



A delicious and novel tasting dish is furnished by the 

 common yarrow when it is quite young and tender — it 

 is too bitter to eat when it matures — and mixed with a few 

 otiier salad leaves. It is excellent for children and is a 

 good Spring medicine. In some parts of the country 

 this herb is called milfoil, thousand-leaf clover, green 

 arrow, old-man's pepper and bloodwort. 



To children the weed called "cheeses" because of the 

 little pulpy seed-containers that have somewhat the flavor 

 of cheese, is very familiar, but few grown persons would 

 think of it, the common mallow, as a vegetable, but it has 

 proved upon experiment to be a most valuable addition 

 to our weed-vegetables, either cooked or as a salad. It 

 makes a very substantial salad and the leaves are rich in 

 nutrition for the roots strike deeply into the soil, and 

 therefore draw the most valuable mineral elements into 

 the leaves, which are tender and crisp, and have a taste 

 quite unlike anything else. They are excellent as a 

 foundation for various vegetable and fruit salads. It 

 loses most of its tastiness when cooked. 



The wild pepper-grass is to the farmer a well-known 

 and troublesome weed. Whole fields are yellow from the 

 beautiful flower of the wild mustard, as it is known to 

 most people. But upon examination we find the leaves 

 smaller than those of the true mustard. When picked 



