THE MANSE GARDEN. 191 



soil, and suits all seasons. It fills up odd corners ; 

 and as it soon arrives at maturity, it serves to occupy 

 for a time those blanks which necessarily occur in 

 crops of larger growth and longer duration. It is 

 sown in shallow drills as wide between as to admit 

 the hoe. The summer crops do no good after the 

 first cutting, and may therefore be allowed to grow 

 as thick as grass ; but plants that have to stand the 

 winter, and sprout again after the spring cutting, 

 must have a certain strength of root and thickness 

 of stem. The sort having prickly seed and a tri- 

 angular leaf, being the more hardy, is the fittest for 

 winter; that which has smooth seed and a blunt 

 round leaf is the best for summer crops. The 

 winter crop is sown in the beginning of August, 

 and by the end of autumn so thinned as to stand in 

 single plants, a fresh hoeing and further thinning 

 of the drills, to the distance of a handbreadth, being 

 reserved till spring. The round-leaved variety may 

 be sown any time from the first of February, when 

 the ground is dry, till the season for sowing the 

 winter crop. There is a wild sort, which grows 

 every where as a weed, and may be known by a 

 beautiful purple meal of changing hue like the 

 dove's neck with which the heart of the leaf is 

 sprinkled: it is said when cultivated to be nothing 

 inferior to the garden spinach. Plants designed for 

 seed should be thinned to the distance of eight or 

 ten inches. This is the only vegetable in common 

 use that has the male and female flowers on different 

 plants a circumstance which causes no trouble in 

 the raising of seed, as it is sure to happen that of a 

 considerable number of plants there will be some of 

 both sexes. 



