SEA-KALE. 211 
for half the year, including all the winter months, It, has 
within these few years become a vegetable of common oc- 
currence, in the markets both of London and Edinburgh. 
Sea-kale seems partial to a light dry.soil. If manure 
be added, it should consist of. sea-weed or half-rotted leaves 
of trees. The plants may be propagated by offsets, or 
small pieces of the roots having buds or eyes attached to 
them; but the most, eligible method is by seed. Very 
tolerable blanched stalks are sometimes produced by plants 
only nine months old from the seed, and after two summers, 
seedling plants will have acquired sufficient strength for 
general cropping. The sowing is made in March, the 
seeds being deposited in patches of three or four together : 
the patches are arranged in lines three feet apart, and two 
feet in the line. In order to secure a succession, and to 
obviate the bad effects of forcing, it is proper to sow a few 
lines of sea-kale every year. 
Various modes of blanching the shoots have been resort- 
ed to. In the first volume of the Memoirs of the Cale- 
donian Horticultural Society, Sir George S. Mackenzie 
describes a very convenient method. The sea-kale bed is 
merely covered, early in spring, with clean and dry oat- 
straw, which is removed as often as it becomes musty. 
The shoots rise through the straw, and are at the same 
time pretty well blanched. Others employ dried tree- 
leaves for this purpose. Another method, practiced by 
many gardeners, consists in placing over each plant a 
flower-pot, of the largest size, inverted; but convenient 
blanching-pots, with movable lids, have been constructed: 
for the express purpose. It may be proper to provide 
from thirty to sixty such pots: and it may be expected 
that each pot will, on an average, furnish a dish and a half 
of shoots during the season. 
