KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. CHAP. 



132. CALE (SEA).- This is a plant which is a native 

 f the sea-beach : it . is, in fact, sea- cabbage. It has a 

 bloom not much unlike that of the cabbage, a seed also, 

 only larger ; the leaf strongly resembles the cabbage- 

 leaf} but this is a perennial, whereas all the cabbage 

 kinds are biennials. This plant soon gets to have a large 

 stem or stool, like the asparagus, out of which the shoots 

 come every spring. These stools are covered over 

 pretty deep with sand or coal-ashes or some such thing, 

 and sometimes with straw or leaves 3 and the shoots, 

 coming up under the ashes or sand or earth, are bleached, 

 until they come to the air, and these shoots are cut off 

 and are applied for table-use just after the manner of the 

 asparagus j and, though in point of goodness, they are 

 not to be put in comparison with the asparagus, they 

 come a month earlier in the spring, and, for that reason, 

 they are cultivated. They are propagated by seed, and 

 also by offsets. The mode of sowing, and of planting 

 may be precisely the same, in all respects, as those di- 

 rected for the asparagus, except that you may begin to 

 cut the cale for eating, the second year. You cut down 

 the stalks in the fall of the year just in the same manner 

 as you cut down those of the asparagus ; and the treat- 

 ment all through may be just the same, except that there 

 may be a greater depth of ashes or of sand over the 

 cale than of earth or manure over the asparagus. While 

 you can have asparagus in a hot-bed, it can hardly be 

 worth while to have the cale in that way ; but if you 

 chose to do it, you might, and the method is the same, 

 except that the covering in the bed must be deeper for 

 the cale than for the asparagus. Gardeners sometimes, 

 after having covered the crowns well over with sand or 



