LETTUCE. 325 



in pottage and soups. Modern physicians 

 begin to discountenance the use of raw ve- 

 getables, and reason tells us, that too free a 

 use of salads in the winter season cannot be 

 beneficial to the generality of constitutions 

 in this country ; yet we find our late adven- 

 turers to the North found it desirable to grow 

 green salads in their ships, for the benefit of 

 the sick, when they were within a few de- 

 grees of the North Pole. 



We now cultivate eight varieties of endive. 



DANDELION.— LEONTODON. 



This despised vegetable, although an ex- 

 cellent salad herb, belongs to the family of 

 the succory and endive, and is botanically 

 arranged under the same order and class as 

 the lettuce. 



We find the Romans named most plants 

 from their similarity to some well-known ob- 

 ject, or in allusion to some virtue which they 

 were supposed to possess; on examining the 

 leaves of the dandelion, they will be found 

 cut or jagged, like the teeth of a lion, and 

 which is expressed by the name Leontodon. 

 The French name this plant Dent de Lyon, 

 from Dens Leonis, lion's tooth, from which 



