210 THE KITCHEN GARDEN. [MARCH 



as every seed may not vegetate, or at least not the first season, which 

 would be a losing year ; besides, some of those that do may be de- 

 stroyed by worms or insects. Should all of them succeed they are 

 easily reduced to three plants. This reduction, however, need not be 

 made too hastily. During summer your bed of course must be kept 

 perfectly clean from weeds. If, for the sake of a more certain crop, 

 you are disposed to make your plantation of the cuttings of the roots, 

 you may take such as are about half an inch or a little more in 

 diameter, and cut them into pieces of about two inches in length, 

 burying each in an upright position about three inches under ground, 

 in the same kind of bed and at the same distances as you would have 

 sown the seeds. The middle or latter end of this month will be a 

 proper season in the middle States for doing this; earlier in the 

 southern States, and somewhat later in the eastern. 



Or if, for the sake of forwarding your plantation and gaining time, 

 you make use of plants instead of seeds or cuttings, presuming that 

 it is possible for you to procure them, they should be those of a year 

 old, and taken up with due care out of the seed-bed. Trim off the 

 extreme part of the root, and let each plant be planted in a perpen- 

 dicular manner so deep as that its crown will be one inch under the 

 surface. The period before mentioned for planting cuttings will be 

 the proper time for transplanting these. If their flowering-stalks be 

 cut for food the same season, it will weaken the plants considerably, 

 and hence, even in point of time, there is little gained by using such ; 

 for most of the seedling plants in your bed, if they have been pro- 

 perly managed, as well as your plants from cuttings, will flower, and 

 of course be fit to cut the second year. 



In November cover your beds with a thick coat of rotten dung or 

 leaves ; this, at the same time that it protects your plants from frost, 

 will bring them more forward, and add to their luxuriance ; about 

 the middle of March, in the middle States, it will be necessary to 

 cover your plants for blanching ; the most ready mode of doing which, 

 is to draw the earth up with a hoe over the crown of the root, so that 

 each plant shall be covered to the depth of ten or twelve inches ; 

 some blanch it by heaping on it sea sand, some common sand and 

 pebbles, and others with large garden pots inverted, and placed im- 

 mediately over the plants, stopping up the holes at the bottoms; this 

 last is the neatest and cleanest mode. 



The finest or at least the largest sea kale, is that which is pro- 

 duced from seedling plants the first year of their flowering, as the 

 great produce of the plant then centres in one flowering stem ; after- 

 wards the crown of the root ramifying into many heads, a greater 

 number of stalks are produced, which are more slender but not less 

 delicate. 



When your plants have been covered in either method, three, four, 

 or five weeks, according to the early or late period of covering, ex- 

 amine them, and if you find that the stalks have shot up three or 

 four inches, you may begin cutting ; should you wait till all the shoots 

 are of a considerable length, your crop will come in too much at once, 

 for in this plant there is not that succession of growth which there 

 is in asparagus; you may continue cutting till you see the head of 



