640 THE COMMON SPINACH. 



and have the flavour of sea-kale or asparagus, joined to somewhat of 

 the hot taste of garden cress. The plant is propagated either by 

 cuttings taken from tubers placed in heat early in the season, and 

 treated like cuttings of dahlias so obtained, or by cuttings of the 

 tubers, leaving one good eye in each set. These may be brought for- 

 ward on heat in separate pots, and when all danger from frost is over, 

 turned out into a light, rich, sandy soil, three feet or four feet apart 

 every way, and either left to cover the ground with their trailing 

 stems, by which the soil will be kept moist, or sticked like peas. The 

 latter is the best mode in a moist season or damp soil. In October, 

 when the leaves are beginning to decay, the plants may be taken up, 

 and the tubers placed in a dry cellar, or in a pit or ridge, out of the 

 reach of frost and damp, in the manner of the tubers of Oxalis, or those 

 of the potato. (' Gard. Mag.,' 1838, p. 254.) T. edule, and other 

 species with tuberous roots, might doubtless be used as substitutes 

 for the Tropseolum tuberosum, L. 



Spinaceous Esculents. 



The only spinaceous esculents generally cultivated in British gar- 

 dens are the common spinach, and the sorrel ; but we have also French 

 spinach, beet-spinach, perennial- spinach, New Zealand spinach, and 

 Herb-patience. They are all very mild in quality, and may be used 

 as greens by persons with whom the cabbage-tribe would disagree. In 

 the rotation of crops, some of them, as the common spinach, are 

 secondary ; others, as the white beet, are annual ; and some, as the 

 sorrel, are stationary. 



The Common Spinach. 



The Common Spinach (Spinacia oleracea, L.) is a chenopodiaceous, 

 dioecious annual, a native of the north of Asia, in cultivation from the 

 middle of the sixteenth century, or earlier, for its succulent leaves. 

 It is a very hardy plant, the Flanders variety particularly, withstand- 

 ing the severest frost. The leaves are used boiled and mashed up as 

 a separate dish, and in soups or stews, with or without the addition of 

 sorrel. The leaves may be obtained from the open ground from April 

 to November, and also to a moderate extent through the winter and 

 spring. There are three varieties, the round-seeded, for sowing 

 during summer ; the Flanders spinach, which has also smooth seeds 

 but larger, and very large leaves, for sowing in autumn for use in 

 winter and spring ; and the prickly-seeded, or common winter spinach. 

 The quantity of seed required for a bed four and a half feet by thirty 

 feet is two ounces, or for one hundred and fifty feet of drill, one ounce. 

 The seed comes up in a fortnight or three weeks, according to the 

 season. The best mode of sowing is in drills eight inches apart for 

 summer spinach, and ten inches or one foot for Flanders spinach ; the 

 plants in the former case to be thinned to six inches apart, and in the 

 latter to eight inches, as soon as they have shown a proper leaf. In 

 order that the leaves may be succulent, and properly flavoured, the 

 soil should be rich and the situation open and airy, more especially for 



