THE KITCHEN-GAEDKN. 21 



all are the same. The whole of that part of the year during which 

 the frost is out of the ground, is not a bit too long for the getting of 

 fine celery. The seed sown in the cold ground .in April will lie six 

 weeks before it comes up. A wheel-barrow full of hot dung, put in a 

 hole in the ground against a wall, or any fence, facing the south, and 

 covered with rich and fine mould, will bring the seed up in two weeks. 

 If you have a hot-bed frame, or a hand-light, the thing is easy. A 

 large flower-pot will bring up out of ground plants enough for any 

 family. As soon as the plants are three inches high, and it scarcely 

 matters how thick they stand, make a nice little bed in open, free air ; 

 make the ground rich and the earth very fine. Here prick out the 

 plants at four inches apart ; and, of course, nine in a square foot. They 

 are so very small that this must be carefully done ; and they should be 

 gently watered once, and shaded two days. A bed ten feet long and 

 four wide will contain 360 plants ; and if they be well cultivated they 

 are more than any common-sized family can want from November till 

 May. In this bed the plants stand till the middle of July, or there- 

 abouts, when they are to go out into trenches. Make the trenches a 

 foot deep and a foot wide, and four feet apart. The bottom, to the 

 depth of four inches, should be made rich by finely rotted manure, and 

 the plants set six to eight inches apart in the row. Water them freely, 

 and shade them for a few days. The soil should be frequently stirred 

 with a small hoe. About the middle of August the earth should be 

 drawn up carefully about the plants, but not to cover their centers. 

 About the first of October the earthing may be done more frequently, 

 say once in two weeks. When two feet high, they are fit for the table. 

 When continued frost is expected, the plants should be covered with 

 dry litter, and a supply for use laid in a bed of sand or earth in the 

 vegetable cellar, where they will keep fresh for several weeks. 



Cress is a small salad herb, and is generally used with lettuce, white 

 mustard, rape, chervil, etc. It may be sown very thick in little drills, as 

 should salad seed in general, and cut before it comes into rough leaf. 

 A small quantity in the salad season, which is spring and autumn, may 

 be sown every week in rich ground, free from weeds. 



Cucumber. — Cucumbers, melons, etc., are often planted too thick. One 

 plant in a hill is all that should be allowed to mature. One plant, will 

 bring more than two, twio more than three, and so on, until you have no 

 fruit. The roots of a cucumber, in fine earth, will go ten feet ! Let 

 this fact be understood by all our young readers, and we shall soon sije 

 finer bearing vines than we have had heretofore. If »you wish to have 

 them a month earlier than the natural ground will bring them, do this : 

 make a hole, and put into it a little hot dung ; let the hole be under a 

 warm fence ; put six inches deep of fine rich earth on the dung ; sow a 

 parcel of seeds in this earth ; and cover at night with a bit of carpet, or 

 sail-cloth, having first fixed some hoops over this little bed. Before the 

 plants show the rough leaf, plant two into a little flower-pot, and fill as 

 many pots in this way as you please. Have a larger bed ready to put 

 the pots into, and covered with earth so that the pots may be plunged 

 in the earth up to their tops. Cover this bed like the last. When the 

 plants have got two rough leaves out, they will begin to made a shoot in 



