192 GARDENING FOS PROFIT. 



CRESS W A.TIH!i, (Nasturtium ojficinale.) 



This is a well-known hardy perennial aquatic plant, 

 growing abundantly along the margins of running 

 streams, ditches and ponds, and sold in immense quanti- 

 ties in our markets in spring. Where it does not grow 

 naturally, it is easily introduced by planting along the 

 margins of ponds or streams, where it quickly increases, 

 both by spreading of the root and by seeding. Many a 

 farmer in the vicinity of New York realizes more profit 

 from the Water Cresses, cut from the margin of a brook 

 running through his farm in two or three weeks in spring, 

 than from his whole year's hard labor in growing Corn, 

 Hay or Potatoes. 



Water Cress can be best cultivated in places where the 

 streams run through a level tract. Supposing the stream 

 to be a foot deep on an average, and six or eight feet 

 wide, running through a meadow, a good plan for culti- 

 vation is to make excavations laterally, say in beds five 

 feet wide (with five foot alleys between), to a depth of 

 about eight inches, or deep enough to be flooded by the 

 stream when it is of average height, or when shallow, by 

 damming it up so as to flood the beds. 



The advantage of having the beds excavated at right 

 angles to the stream rather than parallel with it is, that 

 in the event of freshets the crop is less liable to be washed 

 away. The length and number of the beds excavated 

 must, of course, be determined by circumstances. 



Water Cress seeds germinate freely in earth when kept 

 saturated ; hence the beds, when properly levelled and 

 pulverized by digging and raking, should be slightly 

 flooded enough to only saturate the soil until the seeds 

 germinate, for, of course, if the beds were filled up with 

 water, the seeds would be washed off. After the seed- 

 lings have started so as to show green, the water may be 

 gradually let on as they develop. 



The best time of sowing the seed for the latitude of 



