Ch.XLVI.] ON FARMERS' GARDENS. 575 



flavoured. The vacant ground between the rows of artichokes is usually 

 cropped with some other plant during summer. 



The Jerusalem artichoke, though so hardy as to grow in almost any 

 soil, is also a delicate vegetable if served, when boiled, in a white sauce. 

 The tubers are planted whole, in the same manner as potatoes, and the 

 crop may be taken up at any time during the winter. 



Celery is a plant which, when well blanched, is an excellent salad, and its 

 value in soups is known to every one, A seed-bed of a yard square is 

 sufficient ; and, if a hot-bed cannot be had, should be sown on the 

 warmest spot of the garden, about the beginning of April. The seed- 

 lings are slow of growth ; but, as soon as they are two or three inches 

 high, they should be pricked out on another bed, to gain strength, until 

 the time of placing tliem in trenches arrives — viz., some time in the 

 month of July — that is, between hay time and harvest. At this time, 

 parallel trenches, four feet asunder, should be digged, six or eight inches 

 deep ; in the bottom of these, three inches deep of the richest dung is 

 laid and digged down. Along the middle of the trench, the plants 

 (being carefully raised from the nursery-bed) are dibbed in, six inches 

 from each other: water them copiously, and the work is done. In a 

 month or six weeks the plants will have filled the trench with their leaves ; 

 and then it is time to crumble down with the spade a little loose earth from 

 the sides, letting it fall against, but not into the hearts of the plants. This 

 earthing-up is continued from time to time till the plants stand in ridges, 

 eighteen inches or two feet high, and by which the leaf-stalks are thoroughly 

 blanched and fit for use. 



Endive is another salad-plant, and particularly useful in winter when let- 

 tuce is scarce : this requires blanching to make it crisp and palatable. Small 

 portions of the Curled and Batavian sorts should be sown about the end of 

 June, and again at the end of July. From these seed-beds plants may be 

 had to transplant, in open order, as much as may be necessary for autumn 

 and winter use : the plants require twelve-inch spaces, as they spread much. 

 They are blanched by tying-up like lettuce, by being earthed-up like 

 celery, or by plunging them in beds of dry sand : sometimes endive is 

 blanched, and moreover defended from the frost, by being covered with 

 dry leaves of trees or fern. 



Red beet is a vegetable extensively employed for the table throughout 

 France, though here it is only considered useful in garnishing and in made- 

 salads, and therefore a single row of a dozen plants may be enough in a 

 farmer's garden — sown in April ; but if boiled until it becomes tender, 

 then sliced, when cold, and eaten with oil and vinegar, either alone or with 

 celery and onions, or mixed with endive, it forms an admirable winter- 

 salad, and is both nutritive and wholesome. 



A large bed of winter- spinach should be sown in the second week of 

 August, which will be serviceable throughout winter and spring. 



Of cucumbers, if not with hot-bed sort, at least a ridged crop may 

 be grown for salads and for pickling. For this a trench, two feet deep 

 and as much in width, should be filled with hot stable-dung, closely beaten 

 down with the fork, and covered with ten inches of rich earth. Alono- the 

 middle, seeds, or plants (previously raised in a hot-bed, of stable-dung) 

 are put in about the 20ih of May, with the addition of hand-slasses 

 for the plants to be nursed under, in the first stage of their growth. If, 

 however, the farmer has not at hand any of these glasses, or frames, in 

 which they are raised by professional gardeners, he must then immediately 

 hoop over the bed, to bear the covering of a mat, a sack, or any old gar- 

 ment, till the heat of the season renders covering unnecessary. When the 



