SEA KALE. 215 



is preferred to it by many ; it has much broader leaves, 

 but it is cultivated and used in the same manner. 



SEA KALE, (Crambe maritima.) 



Sea Kale is a favorite vegetable in European gardens, 

 but here, as yet, almost unknown. Anticipating that at 

 no distant day it may be as generally cultivated as it de- 

 serves to be, I briefly describe the mode of culture. The 

 seeds of Sea Kale should be sown in the greenhouse, or 

 in a slight hot-bed in February or March, and when the 

 plants are an inch or two in hight, they should be potted 

 into two or three-inch pots and placed in a cold frame to 

 harden, until sufficiently strong 

 to be planted in the open 

 ground. It should then be set 

 out in rows three feet apart, 

 with two feet between the 

 plants, on land enriched as for 

 any ordinary cabbage crop. If 

 the plants and the soil in which 

 they have been planted are both 

 good, and cultivation has been 

 properly attended to, by keeping 

 the plants well hoed during the 

 summer, it will have " crowns" 



, . Fiff. 95 SEA KALE 



strong enough to give a crop the 



next season. In the northern states it will be necessary 

 to cover the rows with three or four inches of leaves, to 

 protect the plants from frost. Sea Kale is only fit for 

 use when te blanched," and to effect this, on the approach 

 of spring the " crowns" should be covered with some 

 light material, such as sand or leaf -mold, to the depth of 

 twelve or fifteen inches, so that the young shoot being 

 thus excluded from the light, will become blanched in 

 growing through this covering. Sometimes cans made 



