PERENNIAL VEGETABLES 



RHUBARB 



Is much appreciated by many in the early days of 

 spring, and has certainly much to recommend it 

 as a tonic and appetiser. There are few gardens 

 in which a root or two of rhubarb will not be found 

 growing, so accommodating is it as to environ- 

 ment and conditions, but it is, at the same time, 

 a plant which will well repay liberal culture. It 

 should be given a permanent position in a warm, 

 sunny place, and the ground should be very deeply 

 dug, as the plants make an immense root growth, 

 and the hole in which it is set should be dug eigh- 

 teen inches or two feet deep, and all poor soil at 

 the bottom should be removed and the excavation 

 filled in with old manure and good, mellow soil. 

 On this the roots of the rhubarb should be set, the 

 crown only a little below the surface of the ground. 

 The ground should slope away from the plants to 

 insure good drainage in the winter. Cultivation 

 in the early spring should be given, but will not 

 be necessary throughout the summer if a mulch 

 is placed over the ground on each side of the 

 plant. The great overhanging leaves are quite 

 effectual discouragers of weeds, and few, if any, 



