204 FRUIT GARDEN. 



to be thinned out. The seed, though commonly sown 

 broad-cast, are best in drills or rows nine inches apart, so 

 as to admit of hoeing between. 



NEW ZEALAND SPINACH ( Tetragonia expansa) is a half- 

 hardy annual, a native of New Zealand, from which it was 

 brought by the late Sir Joseph Banks. The plants grow 

 tall, spread wide, and the leaves form a good substitute for 

 spinach. If the plants be well watered, they will continue 

 to afford large quantities of succulent leaves during the 

 hottest and driest weather, when summer spinach is useless. 

 In England, the seed is usually sown in a pot placed in a 

 melon-frame in March : the seedlings are transplanted 

 singly into small pots, and kept under cover till the begin- 

 ning of June, when they are plunged out at two or three 

 feet apart, and treated somewhat like gourds. In gathering 

 the leaves, care should be taken not to injure the leading 

 shoots. 



QUINOA SPINACH (Chenopodium Quinoa). This vegeta- 

 ble is a native not only of Chili but of the table land of 

 Mexico. It is described and figured by Ruiz and Pavon ; 

 and Humboldt informs us that in Mexico the leaves are 

 universally used as spinach or greens, and the seeds in 

 soups, or like rice, so that quinoa there vies in utility with 

 the potato itself. Although the plant had been known in 

 Britain for a number of years, it was only during the 

 autumn of 1834 that any considerable portion of seed was 

 ripened or saved in this country. This was accomplished 

 at Boyton in Wiltshire, by Mr. Aylmer Bourke Lambert, 

 the well-known patron of botany and horticulture. Con- 

 sidering the elevated region in America in which the quinoa 

 is successfully cultivated, there can be no doubt that its 

 herbage may be freely produced in England ; but it seems 



