HORTICULTURE. 



Kitchen stalks ; the stems, when allowed to spring up, rise to 

 v^*"*""* . the height of four or five feet. In old times, garden 

 Faiicnce~ patience was much cultivated as a spinach. It is now 

 very much neglected, partly perhaps on account of the 

 proper mode of using it, riot being generally known. 

 The leaves rise early in the spring ; they are to be cut 

 while tender, and about a fourth part of common sor- 

 rel is to be mixed with them. In this way patience- 

 dock is much used in Sweden, as we have been in- 

 formed by the late Sir Alexander Seton of Preston, 

 who had an estate in Sweden, and frequently resided 

 there. This mixture may be safely recommended as 

 forming an excellent spinach dish. Garden patience 

 is easily raised from seeds, which may be sown in lines, 

 in the manner of common spinach, or white beet. If 

 the plants be regularly cut over two or three times in 

 the season, they continue in a healthy productive state 

 for a good many years. 



Boiled Salads. 



Boiled sa- UNDEII this title (not perhaps strictly correct, as salad 

 **^*- may be considered as implying rawness in the vegeta- 



ble) we include a few plants which cannot well be 

 ranked as pot-herbs, and yet are generally boiled be. 

 fore being presented at table. One of the chief of 

 these is 



Asparagus. 



Asparagus. 352. (Asparagus oflicinalis, L. ; Hexandria Mono- 

 gynia; Asparagi, Juss. ; the Asperge of the French, 

 and Spargel of the Germans.) This is a perennial 

 plant, which occurs native in some parts of Eng- 

 land, as near Bristol, and in the Isle of Portland ; 

 and it has been observed sparingly in one place in 

 Scotland, Seaton Links, East Lothian. It is figured 

 in " English Botany," t. 339. In its native state it is 

 so dwarfish in appearance, even when in flower, that 

 none but a botanist, attending to the minute struc- 

 ture, would consider it as the same species with our 

 cultivated plant. The roots consist of many succulent 

 round bulbs, forming together a kind of transverse 

 tuber ; numerous stems arise, with alternate branches, 

 subdivided into alternate twigs ; the leaves are very 

 small, linear and bristle- shaped; the flowers yellow- 

 ish-green, the berries red. The whole plant, with its 

 fruit, is very elegant in appearance, and is often placed 

 in chimneys as an ornament in the autumn months. 

 The early shoots, when about three or four inches high, 

 are greatly esteemed for the table. For the sake of 

 these, the plant has been cultivated in gardens for ages. 



There are two varieties, the Red-topped and the 

 Green-topped ; the former commonly rising with a 

 larger shoot, but not reckoned so delicate in flavour as 

 the green sort. 



353. Asparagus is propagated either by seeds, or by 

 year-old plants purchased from nurserymen or market- 

 gardeners. It is best to raise the plant from seed ; and 

 it is of considerable importance to procure the seed 

 from an experienced and attentive gardener ; for seed 

 gathered from the strongest and most compact shoots, 

 is found, as might naturally be expected, to yield by 

 much the better plants. It is sown at broad-cast on a 

 seed-bed in M rch, not virj thickly ; and the bed is 

 slightly trodden, and raked smooth : or it is sometimes 

 sown in shallow drills, six inches Asunder, and earthed 

 in from half an inch to an inch deep. The young 

 plants are kept as free of weeds as possible during the 



summer : and in the end of October following, some 

 rotten dung or other litter is spread over the surface of 

 the ground to protect the buds during winter. In the 

 following March or April, according to the dryness of 

 the season, these year-old plants are transferred from 

 the seed-bed into a quarter prepared for them. 



Asparagus ground should be light, yet rich ; a sandy 

 loam, well mixed with rotten dung or sea-weed, is ac- 

 counted preferable to any. The soil should not be less 

 than two feet and a half deep ; and before planting a bed, 

 it is considered good practice to trench it over to that depth, 

 burying plenty of dung in the bottom, as no more can 

 be applied there for eight or ten years. It can scarcely 

 therefore be too well dunged : besides, although the 

 plant naturally grows in poor sandy soil, it is found 

 that the sweetness and tenderness of the shoots depend 

 very much on the rapidity of the growth, and this is 

 promoted by the richness of the soil. Damp ground 

 or a wet subsoil are not fit for asparagus : indeed 

 the French consider wetness as so prejudicial to this 

 plant, that they raise their asparagus beds about a foot 

 above the alleys, in order to throw off the rain. 



The plants are generally raised with a narrow- 

 pronged fork, to avoid cutting the roots ; and when 

 they are taken up, the roots are kept in a little earth, or 

 covered with a mat, till replanted, being very apt to 

 sustain injury from drying, or being too much exposed 

 to the air. A trench about six inches deep being pre- 

 pared, the roots are carefully laid in, a foot distant 

 from each other, the buds or crowns being kept upright, 

 and about two inches below the surface. A foot be. 

 tween each ordinary trench is reckoned sufficient ; but 

 between every four rows a double distance is left for 

 an alley. Some plant in single rows, at two feet and 

 a half or perhaps three feet apart ; and this is by many 

 experienced asparagus farmers considered as better 

 than the bed form. 



It is a general rule, that, in dry weather, the new 

 planted beds or rows should be carefully watered. With 

 attention to this rule, asparagus may be transplanted at 

 a later period of the season than March or April. From 

 the Scots Horticultural Memoirs, (Vol. i. p. 71.) we 

 learn, that this operation has been very successfully 

 performed at midsummer. The plants were at that 

 time fourteen months old, and from twelve to fifteen 

 inches high. Being removed with care, and well wa- 

 tered, none of them failed; on the contrary, they gain- 

 ed considerably on those left in the seed-bed. Next 

 spring the remainder of the seedlings were planted out, 

 but many of them failed, while the midsummer planta- 

 tion continued to grow vigorously, and far surpassed 

 those that survived of the spring planting. 



354-. Another mode of propagating asparagus is fol- 

 lowed by some cultivators. They sow the seeds in the 

 spot where the roots are to remain ; either by dibbling 

 holes about half an inch deep, and at a foot distant, and 

 dropping two seeds into each hole for fear of one fail- 

 ing ; or making drills an inch deep, and three feet asun- 

 der, and sowing rather thickly so as to insure a crop, 

 and afterwards thinning out, at first to five or six inches, 

 and ultimately to nine or ten. In this way, it is thought, 

 stronger plants are produced. 



It is a common practice to take a crop of onions along 

 with the drilled seedling asparagus ; and likewise to 

 plant rows of cauliflower, or sow drills of carrot or tur. 

 nip, between the lines of transplanted asparagus the 

 first year. 



Several hoeings are given in the course of the sum- 

 mer, generally three. In the end of September, or be- 



Kile-lien 

 Garden. 



,., 



