SEA-KALE. 211 



for half the year, including all the winter months. It has 

 within these few years become a vegetable of common oc- 

 currence in the markets both of London and Edinburgh. 



Sea-kale seems partial to a light dry soil. If manure 

 be added, it should consist of sea-weed or half-rotted leaves 

 of trees. The plants may be propagated by offsets, or 

 small pieces of the roots having buds or eyes attached to 

 them ; but the most eligible method is by seed. Very 

 tolerable blanched stalks are sometimes produced by plants 

 only nine months old from the seed, and after two summers, 

 seedling plants will have acquired sufficient strength for 

 general cropping. The sowing is made in March, the 

 seeds being deposited in patches of three or four together : 

 the patches are arranged in lines three feet apart, and two 

 feet in the line. In order to secure a succession, and to 

 obviate the bad effects of forcing, it is proper to sow a few 

 lines of sea-kale every year. 



Various modes of blanching the shoots have been resort- 

 ed to. In the first volume of the Memoirs of the Cale- 

 donian Horticultural Society, Sir George S. Mackenzie 

 describes a very convenient method. The sea-kale bed is 

 merely covered, early in spring, with clean and dry oat- 

 straw, which is removed as often as it becomes musty. 

 The shoots rise through the straw, and are at the same 

 time pretty well blanched. Others employ dried tree- 

 leaves for this purpose. Another method, practiced by 

 many gardeners, consists in placing over each plant a 

 flower-pot of the largest size, inverted; but convenient 

 blanching-pots, with movable lids, have been constructed 

 for the express purpose. It may be proper to provide 

 from thirty to sixty such pots : and it may be expected 

 that each pot will, on an average, furnish a dish and a half 

 of shoots during the season. 



