KITCHEN-GARDENING. 127 



year old. These, when gathered while green and tendei, are 

 good to boil and eat in the same manner as Asparagus. Some 

 have carried their fondness for this plant so far as to call it 

 Vegetable Oyster. It requires the same kind of soil and 

 management as Carrots and Parsnips. 



The seed should be sown early in the spring, an inch deep, 

 in drills twelve inches apart. When the plants are two or three 

 inches high, they should be thinned to the distance of six inches 

 from each other, and afterwards hoed. The ground should be 

 kept clean and loose around the plants by repeated hoeing. In 

 the autumn they will be fit for use. The roots may be taken 

 up late in autumn, and secured in moist sand from the air ; or 

 suffered to remain out, and dug up when wanted. As the seeds 

 of Salsify do not all ripen uniformly, it should be sown mode- 

 rately thick, and none but the earliest sowed. 



The mode of cooking recommended by an American author 

 is, " To cut the roots transversely into thin pieces ; boil them 

 in water, or milk and water ; when boiled soft, mash them, and 

 thicken the whole with flour to some degree of stiffness ; then 

 fry them in the fat of salt pork or butter." To some they are 

 a luxury. In England the tops are considered excellent food 

 when boiled tender, and served up with poached eggs and 

 melted butter. They are by some considered salutary for per- 

 sons inclined to consumption. 



SCORZONERA. 



SCORSONERE. Scorzonera Hispanica. 



This plant has long been raised in British gardens, for 

 culinary purposes, and especially as an ingredient in soups, on 

 account of its palatable and nourishing roots. Some boil and 

 eat them like Carrots, in which case they should be deprived 

 of their rind, and immersed in cold water for half an hour, or 

 they will be bitter. They are raised precisely in the same 



