666 SALADS. 



cultivated on the Continent for its roots, which are cut in slices, kiln- 

 dried, and ground as a substitute for coffee ; and for its leaves, which 

 are blanched and used like those of the endive. It is also sown thick, 

 and when quite young cut as small salad. In Flanders the roots are 

 scraped and boiled, and eaten along with meat, or with a sauce of 

 butter and vinegar. In British gardens it is only cultivated as a 

 winter salad. It is sown in the end of June or beginning of July, and 

 treated like the endive, except that it is not blanched. Instead of this 

 process, the leaves are cut off the plants, but so as not to destroy their 

 hearts, about the beginning of October ; the roots are then dug up, 

 shortened, and planted in pots, or portable boxes, with the dibble, 

 very close together in rich soil, watered, and afterwards protected 

 from the frost by a light covering of litter, taken off in the daytime, 

 or by any other convenient means. In a week or two the plants will 

 be established, and the pots or boxes are then removed, as the produce 

 is wanted, into the mushroom-house, or into a cellar, or any other 

 dark warm place where the light will be completely excluded ; or into 

 any light warm place, and covered over so as to force the production 

 of leaves and the blanching of them at the same time. In a few days 

 the roots will push forth leaves which will be completely blanched, and 

 each leaf, when fully expanded, may be gathered separately till the 

 plants cease to produce any. These leaves in Belgium, and in the 

 North of Germany and Russia, are considered as forming the most 

 agreeable of all winter salads ; and by a sufficient number of roots, it 

 may be had in perfection from November till May. It is not even 

 necessary to plant the roots in pots or boxes : they may be left in the 

 soil covered with litter, and taken up to be forced as the salad is 

 wanted ; or they may be taken up and preserved in sand ; or they may 

 be pitted in the manner of potatoes ; portions being regularly taken 

 up, potted, and forced as wanted. The roots being established in the 

 pots before forcing is a matter of very little consequence, as the leaves 

 are supplied, not from the soil by means of the spongioles of the fibres, 

 but from the nutriment laid up in the roots. The temperature of the 

 mushroom-house, or other place in which the chicory is forced, 

 should be between 55 and 60 ; but the roots will send up leaves if 

 the temperature is a few degrees above the freezing point. No 

 blanched production is more beautiful than succory, as the leaves 

 become of a pure white with most delicate pencillings of crimson, when 

 grown as above recommended in a mushroom-house. Aboard ship 

 the roots of the succory are packed into casks of sand, with their 

 heads protruding through numerous holes pierced in the sides of the 

 cask, by which means a maximum of produce is procured from a 

 minimum of space. 



An excellent substitute for the succory, both as a salad and a coffee 

 plant, may be found in the common dandelion (Leontodon Taraxacum, 

 L., which is by many persons, and by us among the number, con- 

 sidered not inferior to it for both purposes. 



