CULTIVATION OF CARAWAY. 447 



ivvhite colour, having no general or partial involucres, 

 except occasionally a small bristle or two in their place. 

 The fruit, the well-known caraway seed, is oblong, small, 

 of a brown colour, with five narrow thread-like ridges, and 

 a single oil cyst in every interval, in which the character- 

 istic essential oil, which gives the value to the seed, is con- 

 tained. It is said to be a native plant, and is seen occa- 

 sionally growing in rich old pasture lands on the Con- 

 tinent, however, it is met with far more frequently grow- 

 ing wild on the richer description of soils. Both this plant 

 and the coriander are mentioned by the earlier writers. 

 Theophrastus and Dioscorides have described them, and 

 numerated their virtues. In Gerarde they are both 

 rigured; of the caraway he says, "Itgroweth everywhere 

 in Germanie and Bohemia, in fat and fruitful fields, and in 

 rnedowes, that are now and then overrun with water; it 

 groweth also in Caria, as Dioscorides showeth, whence 

 it took its name/' 



In all its agricultural characters it so closely resembles 

 the coriander, that the same soils and the same preparation 

 are equally suited to both crops. Where they form a 

 separate cultivation, however, the caraway may be grown 

 in soils containing a larger proportion of clay a stronger 

 class of loams than the coriander delights in. This 

 secures it that degree of moisture which it needs for its 

 healthy development. 



Formerly, it was the common practice to sow the cara- 

 way either with coriander alone or with both that and 

 teazles combined. This was a very questionable mode of 

 cropping, as even if it were advantageous to devote first- 

 class soils required for this to the latter crop, it would be 

 quite impossible to till and to harvest the three crops 

 separately without doing some injury to the plants re- 

 maining last on the ground. Even the practice of sowing 

 down together two crops belonging to the same order, pos- 



