V. RHUBARB. 



America, dock-leaves are eaten in the spring, and are 

 carried to market in great quantities to be sold. But, in 

 this country, where the winter does not sweep every 

 thing green from the face of the earth, nobody thinks of 

 cultivating the dock, which is one of the most mis- 

 chievous weeds that we have. In that list also is the 

 dandelion ; because that plant also is used as greens in 

 the spring ; and, if the plants be fine, and you lay a tile or 

 bit of board upon them to bleach them, or tie them up 

 as directed for endive, they make very good salad in the 

 month of April j but, not being worth cultivation in a 

 garden, and being a mere weed, they have not been 

 mentioned by me as articles to be cultivated. I am now 

 to speak, not of the dock, but of the foreign rhubarb, 

 of which there are two sorts, the stalks of the leaves of 

 the one being pretty nearly red, and those of the leaves of 

 the other being of a greyish green colour. The latter is 

 the finer of the two, grows larger than the other, and 

 the flavour is better. The uses of the rhubarb are very 

 well known, and it is known also that the only part used 

 is the inside of the stalk of the leaf, which is fit for 

 use towards the latter end of April, when it supplies, by 

 anticipation, the place of green gooseberries in all the 

 various modes in which these latter are applied. The 

 propagation of the rhubarb may be either from seed or 

 from oiFsets. It bears seed in prodigious abundance, and 

 that seed precisely resembles the seed of the dock. It is 

 sowed any time in the spring, in the same manner as di- 

 rected for cabbages, and, when the plants come up, they 

 ought to be thinned to six inches apart in the row. In 

 the fall, the plants are taken up and planted in rows at 

 three feet apart, and two feet apart in the row. During 



