68 THE CULINARY GARDEN. [APRIL. 



Ofs&wing and planting Sea-Catc. 



Sea-cale is most successfully produced on a rich 

 deep sand. It will do pretty well, however, in or- 

 dinary garden soils, if mixed with a considerable 

 proportion of sharp or drift sand, and if they be 

 well manured. In stiff soils it makes little pro- 

 gress ; and in wet ones it is apt to perish in win- 

 ter. 



The manner of culture very much resembles that 

 of asparagus. It may either be raised from seed, 

 or by offsets from the roots, which rise abundantly 

 in spring, and are the parts used of this vegetable *. 

 Sow any time in this month, thinly, in drills thirty 

 inches asunder, and two inches deep ; the plants 

 to be ultimately thinned out to fifteen or twenty 

 inches in line. Or plant in lines at thirty inches 

 distant from each other, and at six or seven inches 

 in line ; thinning out the one-half at this time next 

 year, if they have all survived the winter. The 

 seedlings, sown as above directed, should not be fi- 

 nally thinned out till a year old, lest they sustain 

 injury the first winter. If the plants, either sown 

 or planted, weather the first winter, there is little 



* The sprouts of sea-cale are used, generally, in the man- 

 ner of asparagus, and some people think them little inferior to 

 it, if well blanched ; others prefer putting sea-cale in soup, to 

 any other method of cookery ; and in that way, if it be not com- 

 pletely blanched, the defect is not so perceptible as if served up 



in a dish by itself. 



3 



