APRIL 293 



one alive to one's deficiencies, and causes one to manage 

 better another year. So I thought I would try and see 

 how I liked the root we grow for the cows. We have 

 plenty left, as the winter has been so mild. It is Button's 

 Mangold Wurzel, a yellow kind. We boiled it till tender, 

 whole like a beetroot, and when hot cut it into slices, 

 and ate it with cold butter. It was excellent. In texture 

 it was like a Beetroot ; in taste, half like a sweet Potato, 

 half like a Chestnut. When Mangolds are young they 

 mash like Turnips. 



Early this month Hops begin to show through the 

 ground. When the shoots are about six or eight inches 

 high, before the leaves develop, they can be picked, tied 

 together in a bundle, and cooked exactly like green 

 Asparagus. They have not much taste, but are pleasant 

 in substance, and are supposed on the Continent to be 

 exceedingly wholesome. A vegetable called ' Good King 

 Henry ' is worth growing to eat in the same way, and later 

 the leaves cook like Spinach. 



It is also worth knowing that at this time of year, 

 when vegetables are scarce in the country, the fresh 

 green leaves of Ehubarb generally thrown away make 

 an excellent vegetable dressed like Spinach, either with 

 or without a little butter. 



One of the great' difficulties in a light soil is a con- 

 tinuous supply of Spinach, and gardeners never will sow 

 a sufficient succession in dry weather, when it must be 

 watered. It has a great tendency to run to seed. In 

 Sutton's book ' The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers ' 

 he faces the difficulty and gives instruction for its remedy 

 very efficiently. No other Spinach approaches in excellence 

 the real one, Spinacia oleracea ; but for an extension of 

 the supply two others should be grown in every fair-sized 

 kitchen garden. The New Zealand Spinach (Tetragonia 

 expansa) flourishes in the hottest weather, and is best 



