FORCING SEA-KALE. 173 
heat. The heat of a forcing house, however moist it is 
kept, does not suit Sea-kale; under such circum- 
stances it is wanting in crispness and solidity, and the 
tops only are nice and tender when cooked. But 
when it is forced, by covering it first with pots and 
then with fresh-gathered leaves of the same fall of the 
year, the Kale is of quite a different quality, being 
solid, crisp, and rich, in which case all of it may be 
cooked and eaten to the extent of five or six inches in 
length. 
There is nothing to equal leaves for forcing this 
vegetable. Hot and fresh stable dung, if put on of a 
thickness sufficient to cover the pots well, will ferment 
toa scalding heat, which will last for a week or two 
and then decline, and the heat will have all passed off 
without the least benefit to the Kale, for it will not 
have made the least progress while the manure was hot. 
Sea-kale will not force, to be fit for anything, under 
six or eight weeks from the time that the dung is 
put on the roots. I have tried it, and therefore 
ean vouch for what I say. But leaves act differently 
if they are put on the covers, filling up the spaces 
as well, and forming a bed over the whole of the 
plantation. 
It is much the best and most economical to make 
Sea-kale plantations consisting of not less than three 
rows, i.e. three rows three feet apart and three feet 
from plant to plant. It is far better to make the plan- 
tation in a square of three rows than to plant one row 
only through a quarter; for then, when the fermenting 
material is put on the pots containing the roots, it 
forms a solid bed, which makes the best of the heat. 
The leaves will maintain an equal heat for many weeks 
