122 Salad Crops 



summer or early autumn ; as a very early spring crop from 

 plants allowed to stand over winter. 



For the mid-spring crop, corn-salad should be sown 

 as soon as the land can be fitted. It quickly runs to seed 

 in hot and dry weather. Plants should stand about 6 inches 

 apart in the row. An ounce of seed should yield 2,000 

 to 3,000 plants. The plant matures in six to eight weeks, 

 giving a bunch of leaves somewhat like small-leaved 

 spinach. 



For the late or main supply the seeds may be sown, at 

 the North, in the latter part of August or early part of 

 September. It will provide edible herbage late in the 

 season, and in a mild climate or open winter it will survive 

 and yield acceptable crop in early spring; or it may be 

 protected over winter by leaves or straw, much as 

 spinach is handled; it may be grown and carried over in 

 frames. 



Corn-salad is the cultivated form of Valerianella Locusta, 

 Betcke, Anim. Bot. Valer. 10. 1826. Valerianacem. It is 

 commonly known in horticultural literature as Y. olitoria, 

 Poll. Hist. PI. Palat. i, 30. 1776. (Valeriana Locusta var. 

 olitoria, Linn. Sp. PI. 33.) It is a small glabrous annual, native 

 in Europe, where it grows among the corn (grain), whence 

 the name, " corn-salad" ; it is run wild to some extent in 

 North America : plant making a tuft or mat of oblanceolate 

 or oblong obtuse root leaves 2 to 3 in. long, which are entire 

 or toothed ; stem leaves similar, successively smaller, opposite, 

 sessile, some of them, narrowed to the base: stem 1 ft. or 

 less high, at length much branched, bearing very small light 

 blue 5-lobed flowers in dense heads terminal on forking 

 branches: fruit ("seed") nearly orbicular but with a short 

 2-pointed beak, somewhat flattened sidewise, -h in. long, light 

 brown, furrowed up the middle, where 1 lenticular seed is 



