SPINACH. 



303 



gan to be active. But when the duty of 1822 

 upon foreign sugar amounted to a prohibition, 

 their prosperity was certain. They were en- 

 abled to tax the consumer to the amount of the 

 prohibition. The beet-root sugar pays no duty 

 whatever. In 1829 there were 101 manufacto- 

 ries of this sugar in employment, which pro- 

 duced five million kilogrammes in the year, or 

 about one-sixteenth part of the whole consump- 

 tion of sugar in France. That the people of 

 France are the sufferer? by this miserable policy 

 is sufficiently evident, from the fact that their 

 average yearly consumption does not exceed four 

 pounds of sugar per head : in the United King- 

 dom it is twenty pounds per head. 



Upon the national advantage of that commer- 

 cial policy which has given rise to the manufac- 

 ture of beet-root sugar in France, and which 

 may probably extend the system to Germany 

 and Russia, we have much pleasure in extract- 

 ing the following sensible observations from a 

 valuable periodical work : — 



" Tiie history of this manufacture in France 

 is an illustration, we apprehend, not of the na- 

 tural progress of industry and of the arts, but of 

 the effects of a system which counteracts the 

 natural progress of both. Whatever may be the 

 ultimate state of this singular manufacture, in 

 consequence of mechanical and chemical imr- 

 provements yet unknown to us, it is now only 

 supported by a system of commercial and finan- 

 cial policy, which it is for the interest of all 

 countries to see proscribed in Europe. The 

 people of France were the first to be taught by 

 their own philosophers those principles of mu- 

 tual intercourse which form the basis of trade. 

 Nearly a hundred years have elapsed since Q,ues- 

 nay and his followers taught his countrymen, 

 that fi'eedom of intercourse is the soul of com- 

 merce. But his countrymen have yet to learn 

 that liberty is as necessary to the health of com- 

 merce as to the well-being of the citizen ; that 

 trade is but an interchange of things produced ; 

 and that if France will not take the productions 

 of other countries, other countries will not and 

 cannot take the productions of France. The 

 cultivation of the beet is but one ramification of 

 that system of repulsion and exclusion which 

 has been adopted in France, to the oppression of 

 her domestic industry, the rain of her foreign 

 commerce, and the maintenance of false prin- 

 ciples in the commercial policy of surrounding 

 countries." 



Spinach, (spinacia oleracea.) The native 

 country of the common spinach, and the time 

 of its introduction into Britain, are not precisely 

 known. 



The west of Asia is assigned as its native 

 country, but on what grounds are not very clearly 

 shown, except that the earliest notice we find of 

 it is in the works of the Arabian physicians, 



who of course only treat of its supposed medi- 

 cinal properties, which might probably have 

 originally led to its adoption as an edible vege- 

 table. Spain is supposed to have been the first 

 European country into which it was introduced, 

 for many of the old botanists call it olus Hispani- 

 cum; while some writers, among whom is Ruel- 

 lius, distinguish it as atriplex Hispaniensis, and 

 the latter adds that the Moors call it Mspanach 

 or Spanish plant. According to Beckmann, the 

 first notice of its being used as an edible sub- 

 stance in Europe occurs in the year 1351, in a 

 list of the diiferent vegetables consumed by the 

 monks on fast-days ; at that time it was written 

 spinargium or spinachium. This plant found a 

 place among culinary vegetables at rather an 

 early period in England; for Turner, who wrote 

 in 1568, mentions it as being at that time in 

 common cultivation, and prepared for the table 

 precisely in the same manner as it is at present. 



Spinach is an annual plant, having large and 

 succulent leaves : the flowering stems, which are 

 hollow and branched, rise to the height of two 

 or three feet. The male flowers grow on different 

 plants to those of the female, which yield the 

 seed. The former are produced in long terminal 

 spikes, and the latter in close branches at the 

 joints of the stem, or in the axills of the leaves 

 and branches. 



Two varieties of spinach are cultivated. The 

 leaves of the one are arrow-shaped and rough, 

 and of the other round and smooth. July and 

 August are the months in which the seeds of 

 both kinds would naturally come to maturity; 

 but as they slightly differ in their qualities, it is 

 found more advantageous to sow them at different 

 seasons. The round leaved grows the fastest, is 

 the largest and most succulent, and therefore is 

 sown for succession crops in spring and summer; 

 the other, being much more hardy, is preferred 

 for winter supply. The former is usually sown 

 in January, from which time until the end of 

 July frequent sowings are made for a regular 

 succession, from the beginning of April to con- 

 tinue throughout the summer. The rough-leaved 

 is usually sown in August for a winter crop. 

 The seed is sown broad-cast, and in subsequent 

 culture the plants are thinned first to three inches 

 apart, and as they increase in size that distance 

 is doubled. 



From the circumstance of the male and female 

 flowers growing on different plants, when they 

 are left to bring their seed to maturity, care is 

 taken that a due proportion of each is suffered 

 to remain. As soon as the seed capsules ai-e set, 

 the male plants are pulled up, thus allowing a 

 freer space for the female plants wherein to per- 

 fect their seeds. 



Wild Spinach, or English Mercury, or Good 

 King Harry, (chenopodium bonus Henricus.j 

 This plant, which has obtained so many names, 



