BER 



BET 



is greenish : the berries are at first green, but 

 when ripe turn to a fine red colour, it is a 

 native of most parts of the East, 8tc. .flowering 

 in May and ripening the fruit in September. 



There are several varieties : as with red fruit, 

 and stony seeds ; with red stoneless fruit ; with 

 white fruit ; and with black fruit. 



The second 'species never rises higher than 

 three or four feet in this climate. It sends 

 out many stalks from the root, which are 

 strongly armed with spines at every joint : the 

 leaves are produced without order, and are 

 shaped like those of the Narrow-leaved Box-tree : 

 the flowers come out from bet.veen the leaves, 

 each upon a slender peduncle, but these are not 

 succeeded by fruit here. It is a native of Crete, 

 flowering in April and May. 



Culture. — The best method of propagating 

 these shrubs is bv layers, which should lie laid 

 down in the autumn, as soon as the leaves be- 

 gin to drop off; the young annual shoots being 

 made use of for the purpose. They should be 

 left till the following autumn, when they may 

 be taken off and planted out in the situations 

 where they are to remain. They may also be 

 increased by suckers, which rise annually from 

 their roots, but the plants produced in this way 

 are more liable afterwards to send up such 

 suckers. 



Cuttings of the young shoots will likewise 

 often strike root and form good plants, when 

 planted out in the spring, anil properly supplied 

 with water. These may be ?et out in the fol- 

 lowing spring where they are to grow. 



They are also capable of being raised by sow- 

 ing the seed in beds of common earth in the 

 autumn; and when the plants have attained 

 one or uvo years growth, being removed into 

 the nursery, and planted out in rows a foot apart, 

 and eight or ten inches from plant to plant. 

 They should be kept perfectly clean from weeds. 



When plants of this sort are intended to fruit, 

 they should be planted singly in an open situa- 

 tion, and the suckers that may be thrown up 

 carefully removed annually in the autumn, as 

 well as all such gross shoots as may be useless 

 pruned out. By this means the fruit will be 

 rendered finer and more plentiful than under 

 other circumstances. 



In the second species, the layers, after being 

 taken off, should be planted out in pots, and 

 protected in the winter in frames, till they have 

 attained a sufficiently hardy growth to be set out 

 in warm situations in the open ground. 



The principal culture which these shrubs re- 

 quire afterwards, is that of keeping their strag- 

 gling shoots cut in annually. 



These shrubs may be planted out towards the. 



back parts of large lorders or clumps in pleasure- 

 grounds, in mixture with other plants of the 

 deciduous kind, as the fruit has a fine effect in 

 the latter end of summer, and in the autumn. 

 It also constitutes an excellent pickle, and an 

 elegent ii,arni;h. 



They are likewise sometimes planted so as to 

 form a sort of hedge. 



The latter species is more rare and curious 

 than the former. 



BETA, a genus comprising different plants 

 of the hardy esculent biennial kind. 



1 1 belongs to the class and order Pentandiia 

 Digynia, and ranks in the natural order of 

 Holoracece. 



The characters arc : the calyx is a five-leaved,- 

 concave, permanent perianthium ; the divisions 

 ovate-oblong and obtuse : there is no corolla : 

 the stamina consist of five subulate filaments, 

 opposite to the leaves of the calyx, and of 

 the same length with them: the anthers are 

 roundish : the pistillum is a germ in a manner 

 below the receptacle : the styles are two, very 

 short and erect : the stigmas are acute : the pe- 

 ricarpium is a capsule within the bottom of the 

 ealyx, one-celled and deciduous : the seed 

 single, kidney-formed, compressed and involved 

 in the calyx. 



The species principally cultivated in the gar- 

 den are: I. />. vitlgitris, Red Garden Beet. 

 2. B. cicla, White Garden Beet. 



The first has large thick succulent leaves, 

 which are for the most part of a dark red or pur- 

 ple colour: the roots are large, and of a deep 

 red ; on which circumstances their goodness 

 depends ; for, the larger the',- grow the more 

 tender they will be, and the deeper their colour 

 the mere they arc esteemed. It is a native of 

 the southern parts of Europe. 



There are varieties of this which principally' 

 differ in the size and colour of their leaves ; as 

 with long dark red root; with turnip root; with 

 short, large, dark red root; and. with red root 

 and green leaves. 



In the second sort the root seldom grows 

 larger than a man's thumb : the stalks rise 

 erect, and have oblong spear-shaped leaves 

 growing close to the stalk: the spikes of flowers 

 are axillary, long, and have narrow leaves placed 

 between the flowers : the lower leaves are thick 

 and succulent, and their foot-stalks broad : it 

 cultivated for these ; the leaves being- 

 boiled as spinach, or put into soups, and the 

 stalks and midrib of the leaf stewed and eaten 

 as asparagus. 



There are three varieties of this :, the White- 

 leaved, the Green-leaved, and the Swiss or 

 Chard Be°et. The last is probably the large va«- 



