SALSAFY. 



449 



SAND, SILVER OR GREY. 



perennial with flowers of a beautiful deep 

 blue, and S. Splendens, a greenhouse shrub, 

 with fine scarlet blossoms. S. fulgens is 

 another beautiful greenhouse shrub with 

 scarlet flowers. A rich soil is necessaiy for 

 salvias, and protection under glass during 



SALV1A SPLENDENS. 



the winter. They are propagated by 

 seeds and cuttings, sown or set in rich 

 soil and . placed in a frame with gentle 

 bottom heat. If raised from seed, the seed 

 should be sown very thinly and placed in a 

 frame over gentle bottom heat. 



Salsafy. 



This root also likes a light, rich soil, and 

 will grow well on ground that has been 

 well manured for the crop that precedes it. 

 The seed should be sown in April, in drills 

 from 12 to 15 inches apart, and the plants 

 should be thinned out to a distance of from 

 6 to 9 inches apart in the rows. They will 

 be ready for use in the early part of 

 November, when some of the roots may be 

 taken up and stored for winter use in sand, 

 as recommended for beetroot. It is a 

 biennial, and the stalks that it throws up 

 in its second year, and which will ulti- 

 mately develop into flowers and yield seed, 

 supply a tender and useful vegetable that 

 is not unlike asparagus. The oyster-like 

 flavour of the root when properly dressed 

 has obtained for it the name of the Vege- 

 table Qvster. 



Sand, Silver or Grey. 



Silver or grey sand is an indispensable 

 ingredient in all composts for plant-culture. 

 In its purest state, silica or sand is the debris 

 of quartz, or rock-crystal, which is com- 

 posed almost entirely of silica, hard sand 

 being the result of the disintegration and 

 decomposition of rocks by the chemical 

 agency of the atmosphere, assisted by the 

 mechanical powers of the winds, of rain, 

 and abrading waters. It varies much in 

 its composition ; oolitic rocks, granite, lime- 

 stone, and red and green sandstone, all 

 furnishing their quota. As an impalpable 

 powder, it occurs in all soils. In its 

 chemical character silica is an important 

 constituent of organic life, being found, on 

 analysis, in most plants. Mixed with soda, 

 and heated to redness in an iron ladle, 

 silica dissolves to a fused mass ; if thrown 

 into water, it will desolve ; and if nitric 

 acid be added, it becomes gelatinous 

 indications of the means by which silica is 

 treated in the great alembic 

 of nature, and adapted for 

 absorption into the tissue 

 of plants. 



In preparing sand for 

 the more obvious mechani- 

 cal purpose which it 

 serves in plant-culture, 

 it is divested of the other 

 constituents of the soil, 

 by washing and sifting 

 through a fine sieve. In 

 this way, all soils will yield 

 a portion of this element, 

 which may be dried ; 

 but the best mode of SALSAFY. 

 procuring it is to proceed to some stream 

 running through any of the sandstone 

 countries. In such a stream there are few 

 places where winding eddies have not 

 formed a sand-bank, and one of these will 

 ;enerally furnish an ample supply. In 

 towns and in country places where access 



