CULINARY HERBS 1 17 



three weeks earlier than others. This quality of the 

 plant may be bred out by keeping the earliest ma- 

 turing seed separate from the later maturing and 

 choosing this for producing subsequent seed crops. 

 By such selection one to three weeks may be saved 

 in later seasons, a saving of time not to be ignored 

 in gardening operations. 



In ordinary seed production the heads are cut 

 when the bulk of the seed is brown or at least dark 

 colored. The stalks are cut carefully, to avoid shat- 

 tering the seed off. They are laid upon sheets of 

 duck or canvas and threshed very lightly, at once, 

 to remove only the ripest seed. Then the stalks are 

 spread thinly on shutters or sheets in the sun for 

 two days and threshed again. At that time all seed 

 ripe enough to germinate will fall off. Both lots of 

 seed must be spread thinly on the sheets in an airy 

 shed or loft and turned daily for lo days or two 

 weeks to make sure they are thoroughly dry before 

 being screened in a fanning mill and stored in sacks 

 hung in a loft. 



Varieties. — There are four well-defined groups of 

 parsley varieties ; common or plain, curled or moss- 

 leaved, fern-leaved, and Hamburg. The last is also 

 known as turnip-rooted or large-rooted. The objec- 

 tions to plain parsley are that it is not as ornamental 

 as moss-leaved or fern-leaved sorts, and because it 

 may be mistaken for fool's parsley, a plant reputed 

 to be more or less poisonous. 



In the curled varieties the leaves are more or less 

 deeply cut and the segments reflexed to a greater or 

 less extent, sometimes even to the extent of showing 



