280 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



is the case with plants of which the natural habits 

 and localities are not so well ascertained. This 

 culture, therefore, is similar in its circumstances, 

 except in that of time, to those which attend the 

 growth of the plant when in a state of nature. The 

 soil is made light and porous, and as the young 

 plants advance they are artificially, if not natu- 

 rally, watered. When the leaves of the first year 

 die down, the beds are covered with a thin layer 

 of very light and sandy mould, and over that 

 with a layer of about six inches of light litter, to 

 protect the plants from frost, and to preserve about 

 the same temperature which the soil has during 

 winter upon a light sandy beach. In the second sea- 

 son nearly the same treatment is pursued, the object 

 being not to force the upward production, but to 

 make the roots as full of germs and as strong as 

 possible. The earthing up in those two seasons 

 changes the buds in the axillae of the radical leaves 

 into germs, which will produce shoots in the ensuing 

 year ; and, as the process continues, the buds of one 

 season become the stems of the next. 



When the shoots of the third year are coming into 

 action, preparations are made for obtaining the first 

 crop. For this purpose a layer of about an inch 

 thick of fine sand or gravel is laid on the sea-kale 

 bed, that it may have a still nearer resemblance to 

 the sea-beach. If the plants were left to their na- 

 tural action in that soil, freely exposed to the air 

 and the heat of the sun, they would come into flower 

 in May or June, and the progress of the flowering 

 stems, and the expanding and colouring of the ra- 

 dical leaves, would be so rapid, that the plants would 

 be esculent only when very small, and would in con- 

 sequence be of little value ; they would not, in fact, 

 differ much from the wild plants which the peasants 

 gather upon the beach, being, perhaps, inferior, if 



