KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. CHAP. 



nothing quite so pertinacious and pernicious as this : I 

 know of nothing but fire which will destroy its powers 

 of vegetation j and I have never yet seen it clearly ex- 

 tirpated from ground which had once been filled with its 

 roots and fibres. But, as a vegetable, it is a very fine 

 thing : its uses are well known, and to those uses it is 

 applied by all who can get it. It is generally dearer, in 

 proportion to its bulk, than any other vegetable, and 

 much dearer, too. The trouble which its cultivation 

 gives j that is to say, its encroachments, causes it to be 

 banished from small gardens j and, therefore, it is scarce, 

 though so difficult to be destroyed. Any little bit of it, 

 whether of fibre or of root, a bit not bigger than a pea, 

 not longer than the eighth of an inch, if it have a bit of 

 skin or bark on it, will grow. The butts of the leaves 

 will grow, if put into the ground, and it bears seed in 

 prodigious abundance. The best way to get horse-radish, 

 is to make holes a couple of feet deep with a bar, and to 

 toss little bits down to the bottoms of the holes, and then 

 fill them up again. You will soon have a plantation of 

 horse-radish, the roots long, straight, thick and tender. 

 A square rod of ground, with the roots in it planted a foot 

 apart every way, will, if kept clear of weeds, as it 

 always ought to be and never is, produce enough for a 

 family that eats roast beef every day of their lives. The 

 horse-radish should be planted in the south-east or south- 

 west corner of the outside garden, near to the hedge, and 

 it ought to be resolved to prevent its encroachments 

 beyond the boundaries of the spot originally allotted to it. 

 Every autumn, that part of the ground which has been 

 cleared during the year, which might be about one third 

 part of the piece, ought to be deeply dug and replanted 





