CHAP. VI.] SEA-KALE. 125 



eggs, and thus producing a brood to destroy 

 the crop the following year. Asparagus is 

 generally forced by covering the beds with 

 manure, and by deepening the alleys between 

 the beds, and filling them with manure also. 



Sea-Kale. — About eighty years ago, Dr. 

 Lettsom, a celebrated physician and botanist 

 of that day, happened to be travelling near 

 Southampton, when he observed some plants 

 pushing their way up through the sea sand. 

 Finding the shoots of these plants quite suc- 

 culent, he inquired of some person in the neigh- 

 bourhood if they were ever eaten, and was 

 answered, that the country people had been in 

 the habit of boiling these shoots and eatino 

 them as a vegetable from time immemorial. 

 The doctor tasted them, and found them so 

 good, that he took some seed to his friend Mr. 

 Curtis, the originator of the Botanical Maga- 

 zine, who had then a nursery • in Lambeth 

 Marsh. Mr. Curtis wrote a book about the 

 plant, which brought it into notice, and he sold 

 the seed in small packets at a high price: and 

 thus this long-neglected British plant, which 

 for so many years was only eaten by the 

 poorest fishermen, became our highly-prized 

 and much-esteemed sea-kale, which is now so 

 great a favourite at the tables of the rich. 



Sea-kale is raised either from seeds or cut- 

 tings of the roots. In either case, when the 

 plants are a year old, they are put into a bed 

 thoroughly prepared as if for asparagus, and 

 planted in the same manner. The first year 

 the plants will require little care, except cutting 

 down the flower-stems wherever they appear; 



