WILD PLANTS USED AS FOOD. 193 



water-cress, and five in the parsnip, are also an ob- 

 vious distinction. ' If they are in seed the parsnip has 

 capsules, the water-crees pods. 



The water-cress has become an object of cultiva- 

 tion ; and the demand of the metropolis and of 

 other large towns for this favourite vegetable will, 

 probably, render the natural products of our brooks 

 less and less in request. Few wild plants are the 

 same under cultivation ; but even when their qualities 

 are not changed by the care of man, the cultivated 

 sort soon supersedes the uncultivated. The cost of 

 rearing them at will is less than that of searching for 

 them under the difiiculties which attend all sponta- 

 neous produce. 



In a pretty valley called Springhead, situated in 

 Kent, at a short distance from Gravesend, water- 

 cresses are grown on a very extensive scale. The 

 plants, neatly trimmed, growing in regular rows, 

 and appearing under a limpid stream of purest 

 water, give the idea of careful cultivation ; and 

 present themselves under a more pleasing form to 

 be plucked for the table, than when found the in- 

 habitants of ditches. For the purpose of this cul- 

 ture a clayey soil is selected, in which shallow 

 beds scarcely a foot deep are made, having a slight 

 inclination from one end to the other, and into which 

 a small stream of water is introduced. At the 

 bottom of th^ese beds the cress is planted in rows, 

 at about half a foot apart. Dams of six inches high 

 are made at intervals across each bed, their number 

 and frequency being regulated by the length of the 

 bed and its degree of inclination, in such sort, that 

 when these dams are full, the water may rise at least 

 three inches over all the plants of each compartment. 

 The water will thus circulate throughout, and the 

 plants, if not allowed to flower, will furnish an abun- 

 dant succession of young tops throughout the spring, 



VOL. xv. 17 



