358 SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 



the birds and the wasps that will not give them time to 

 ripen slowly. 



I have little doubt that if my project is carried out, any 

 London householder, whether rich or poor, may indulge 

 in delicious desserts of rich fruit all grown on the sites of 

 their own now dirty and desolate back-yards; that if prizes 

 be given for the most prolific branches of cherry and plum 

 trees, gooseberry and currant bushes, the gardens of the 

 Seven-dials and of classic St. Giles's may carry off some of 

 the gold medals; and that, by judicious economy of space 

 and proper pruning of the trees, the canvas conservatories 

 may be made not only to serve as orchard houses, but also 

 to grow the salads, kitchen herbs, and green vegetables for 

 cookery, under the fruit trees or close around their stems. 



Among the suitable vegetables, I may name a sort of 

 perennial spinach which yields a wonderful amount of pro- 

 duce on a small area. Four years ago I took the house in 

 which I now reside, and found the garden overgrown with 

 a weed that appeared like beet, the leaves being much lar- 

 ger than ordinary spinach. I tried in vain to eradicate it, 

 then gave some leaves to my fowls. They ate them greed- 

 ily. After this I had some boiled, and found that the 

 supposed weed is an excellent spinach, which may be sown 

 broadcast in thick patches, without any interspaces, and 

 cut down again and again all the year round, fresh leaves 

 springing up from the roots until the autumn, when it 

 throws up tall flowering stems, and yields an abundant 

 crop of seeds. I have some now, self-sown, that have 

 survived the whole of the late severe winter, while turnip- 

 tops, cabbages, and everything else have perished. I have 

 sown the ordinary spinach seed in the usual manner in 

 rows, and comparing it with the self-sown dense patches 

 of this intruder, find the latter produces, square yard 

 against square yard, six or eight times as much of available 

 eatable crop. 



None of my friends who are amateur gardeners know 

 this variety; but a few days since, I called on Messrs. 

 James Carter and Co., the wholesale seedsmen of Holborn, 

 and described it. They gave me a packet of what they call 

 "Perpetual spinach beet," which, as may be seen by com- 



