158 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



For though kale be of universal cultivation, and 

 though the species be the same, yet it is rare to meet 

 with good greens; and of no two edible substances is 

 there a greater difference than subsists between the 

 pale, soft, and deep-fringed leaves we have described 

 and the dark green or dingy red, hard-ribbed, and 

 leather-apron-like foliage of a common kale-yard. 

 After early potatoes or peas have been removed, set 

 the plants, prepared as above, in rows two feet wide 

 by eighteen inches. The ground being well dug will 

 require no manure after potatoes, but a little after 

 peas or such crops as have been raised without pre- 

 vious manure. Should the stems, from the proxi- 

 mity of a wall or scarcity of air, get too high, the 

 whole crop may be lifted in October, in order to be 

 plunged up to the neck by a fresh digging, or laid 

 in a slope, so that the heads may rest on the ground. 

 This prevents the subsiding of a snow-wreath from, 

 carrying the leaves before it, which it does in .the 

 case of tall stocks, leaving nothing but bare poles. 

 By this method the kale will stand any winter, and 

 may be dug out from beneath the snow entire, and 

 so tender as to melt in the mouth. Salt to kale is 

 proverbial ; and at a season when powdered meat is 

 not heating to the nerves, its union with well boiled 

 pulpy greens gives a relish which nothing at a king's 

 table might improve. 



Horse-radish is as facile of growth as docks ; 

 but even docks, if they were useful, would require 

 some care to have them good. The proper sets are 

 either whole roots or the upper half; and the main 

 thing to know is the depth at which they should be 

 placed. One inexperienced in the ways of bad weeds 



