474 MANUAL OF GARDENING 



most care it is almost impossible to prevent the outside leafstalks from 

 wilting down and dying. The roots should also be trimmed back at 

 each transplanting in order to increase the feeding roots. The plants 

 should be set as deep as possible, care being taken, however, not to 

 allow the heart of the plant to be covered up. The varieties usually- 

 grown for an early crop are the so-called self -blanching varieties. They 

 may be made fit for the table with much less labor than the late crop , 

 the shade required to blanch the stalks being much less. When only a 

 few short rows are grown in a private garden, screens of lath may be 

 made by driving stakes on each side of the row and tacking lath on, 

 leaving spaces of an inch or more for the light to enter; or each head 

 may be wrapped in paper, or a tile drain pipe may be set over the plant. 

 In fact, any material that will exclude the hght will render the stalks 

 white and brittle. 



The seed for the main or fall crop should be sown in April or early 

 May in a seed-bed prepared by forking short well-rotted manure into a 

 fine soil, sowing the seed thinly in rows 8 or 10 inches apart, covering 

 the seed lightly and firming over the seed with the feet, hoe, or back of a 

 spade. This seed-bed should be kept moist at all times until the seed 

 germinates, either by close attention to watering or by a lath screen. 

 The use of a piece of cloth laid directly on the soil, and the bed wet 

 through the cloth, is often recommended, and if the cloth is always wet 

 and taken off the bed as soon as the seed sprouts, it may be used. After 

 the young plants have grown to the height of 1 or 2 inches they 

 must be thinned out, leaving the plants so that they do not touch each 

 other, and transplanting those thinned — if wanted — to other ground 

 prepared in the same manner as the seed-bed. All these plants may be 

 sheared or cut back to induce stockiness. 



An ounce of seed will furnish about three thousand plants. 



If in a private garden, the ground on which the fall crop is usually 

 set will likely be that from which a crop of some early vegetable has 

 been taken. This land should be again well enriched with fine, well- 

 rotted manure, to which maybe added a liberal quantity of wood ashes. 

 If the manure or ashes is not easily obtained, a small amount may 

 be used by plowing or digging out a furrow 8 or 12 inches deep, 

 scattering the manure and ashes in the bottom of the trench and filling 

 it up almost level with the surface. The plants should be set about 



