636 RADICACEOUS ESCULENTS. 



gardens for its root from the beginning of the seventeenth century, 

 and probably long before. The roots are boiled and eaten cold, either 

 to meat, especially mutton, by themselves, dressed as salad, or in 

 mixture with other salad ingredients ; they form a beautiful garnish, 

 and a very desirable pickle. The thin slices dried in an oven are also 

 used in confectionery, and the leaves may be used as spinach or greens. 

 The roots must be washed and also boiled with all their lateral fibres, 

 and, in short, without any part cut off except the leaves ; because it is 

 found that when the root is wounded in any part, the colour in boiling 

 escapes through the wound. There are several varieties, among the 

 best being Henderson's Pine-apple, Dell's Dark Crimson, De war's 

 Crimson, Covent Garden Improved, Cattell's Crimson, Cattell's Short 

 Top, Nutting's, and Pine-apple Short Top ; of these the last four are 

 about the best. One crop of beet is enough for the largest garden, 

 and this should be sown in the middle of April. For a bed four feet 

 and a half by twelve feet, or one hundred and fifty feet of drill, one 

 ounce of seed is sufficient. The ground should be prepared as for the 

 carrot, and the seed may be sown in drills at the same distances, and 

 the same routine culture given, with this difference, that blanks when 

 they occur may be filled up by transplanting when the plants are qiiite 

 small. The plants come up in a month. The crop will be ready for 

 use in September, and may be treated in all respects like a crop of 

 carrots, and like them, if desirable, kept in pits from December till 

 the September following. Great care must be taken in harvesting the 

 crop not to break the roots, else the sap, and with v it the colour of the 

 beet, will ooze out, and the quality be destroyed. 



The Skirret) Scorzonera, Salsify, and CEnothera. 



Though these plants are at present but little cultivated in British 

 gardens, yet we think a small portion of each deserves a place for the 

 sake of variety. 



The Skirret (Sium Sisarum, L.) is an umbelliferous tuberous- 

 rooted perennial, a native of China, and in cultivation in British gardens 

 from the beginning of the sixteenth century. The part used is the 

 root, which is composed of fleshy tubers, about the size of the little 

 finger, and joined together at the collar of the plant in the manner of 

 the tubers of the ranunculus. The tubers were formerly esteemed as 

 " the sweetest, whitest, and most pleasant of roots," either boiled and 

 served up with sauce, or fried in various ways. The root is in season 

 during the same period as the parsnip. There are no varieties ; but 

 when the plant is cultivated, it is generally propagated by dividing the 

 roots. Seed, however, may be obtained, and its culture and manage- 

 ment are in all respects the same as directed for the beet. The seed 

 keeps four years. 



The Scorzonera or Viper's- grass (Scorzonera hispanica, L.) is a 

 chicoraceous fusiform-rooted biennial, a native of the South of Europe, 

 in culture in British gardens since the middle of the sixteenth century. 

 The root is straight, conical, and about the thickness of a middle-sized 



