THE MANSE GARDEN. 189 



asparagus, and ten times more abundant, with less of 

 cost. For this, as for all crops that are deep-rooted 

 and stand long on the same ground, the soil must be 

 well trenched and made good to the depth of two 

 feet. It cannot be too light : an addition of sand is 

 necessary to a soil that has too much clay; but few 

 gardens that have been trenched and under crop for 

 some years will prove faulty for the production of 

 seakale. Seedling plants may be procured from the 

 nurseries ; if not, sow the seed very thin, in drills 

 two inches deep and two feet asunder. This sowing 

 of a continuous drill is merely to secure enough of 

 plants, for ultimately they are left eighteen inches 

 apart in the row. In winter, when the leaves have 

 vanished, dig between the drills, and spread over the 

 plants a light covering of loose dry dung to shelter 

 them from frost. No crop is to be expected till the 

 second winter after sowing; but things of slight 

 growth such as spinach, early turnips, or lettuce 

 may be raised between the drills during the previous 

 summers. 



To blanch the seakale, without which it is not fit 

 to be eaten, procure pots, made for the purpose, with 

 moveable lids, and place them over the plants in the 

 end of the second autumn; then heap up stably litter 

 till the pots are covered a few inches overhead. 

 The rnoveable lids are very convenient for observing 

 whether the plants are ready for cutting, without 

 turning and cooling their warm bed : and few sights 

 are more interesting than the opening of their dark 

 abode in the dead of winter, and the extracting of 

 the ponderous curled shoots in full vigour of growth, 

 white as snow, and glossy and fragile as spun glass. 



