92 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



Rhubarb, or pie plant as the housekeeper calls it, 

 is generally a very inferior and watery affair, but the 

 Linnaeus is an improved sort, not quite so big as 

 Victoria, but wonderfully better. I grow both sorts, 

 because I like both quality and quantity, and both 

 these sorts are good. I have already told you where 

 to grow it, where it can get the richest supply of food. 



I have never seen any better than that which I 

 saw growing just outside a Maine farmer's barnyard. 

 I think many a country homestead could adopt this 

 plan of getting very early and very luxuriant spring 

 sauce. It is called pie plant because it makes delici- 

 ous pies when it is worked up by a born cook. 



Among the beans there is nothing to compare with 

 the new Burpee Improved Bush Lima. This is a 

 real lima bean in size of pod and bean, but grow- 

 ing in the bush form. It produces magnificent crops, 

 six inches long, full size beans, and moderately early. 

 Of the cabbages you must find out by experiment, and 

 the same with the celery, for there are dozens of 

 varieties of each of these vegetables, all having 

 claim on the gardener. A small family in the coun- 

 try can grow all the cabbages they can use by set- 

 ting plants in little vacancies among the berries or 

 melons. 



Celery does not need the hard work that was for- 

 merly given to it, for it bleaches itself, and perhaps 

 the Golden Self-blanching is about as near perfection 

 as we have yet come. It requires no banking ex- 

 cept placing boards on each side. If you have pa- 



