THE CHICORY CROP. 



ALTHOUGH CHICORY is more generally cultivated for its 

 roots than for its leaves and stems, still it possesses quali 

 ties which entitle it to more consideration than it has 

 hitherto received as a crop grown for forage purposes. It 

 differs widely, both in its.botanical and agricultural charac- 

 ters, from those " forage crops" which have preceded it, 

 and on that ground alone is worthy of our notice, as offer- 

 ing to our use a plant which is capable of supplying a 

 large amount of nutritive keep under circumstances which 

 might possibly be unfavourable to the cultivation of those 

 more commonly relied upon for that purpose. At all events, 

 it offers us the means of substitution, should our ordi- 

 nary crops, from any natural or unforeseen causes, fail us. 

 Chicory or succory is one of our indigenous perennial 

 plants, and is met with growing freely in a wild state in 

 many of the light soil districts in England, and also in 

 other countries of Europe possessing similar climatal condi- 

 tions. It prefers the light soils of the calcareous formations, 

 into which its long tap-shaped root can penetrate in search 

 of food. Although well known to the ancients, it would 

 appear, from a passage in Horace, 1 to have been cultivated 

 by them for culinary, rather than for forage uses. Pliny 

 also speaks of its cultivation, and of its many virtues. 2 

 He terms it the wild endive Intybum erraticum. In 

 Gerarde the plant is figured and described, but no mention 

 is made of the purposes for which it was grown. 



1 " Me pascunt olivse, 



Me cichoria, levesque malvse." Horat., lib. i. car. 31. 

 2 Nat. Hist., lib. xix. cap. 39, et lib. xx. cap. 29. 

 VOL. II. 48 



