Bock I. 



NEW ZEALAND SPINAGE. 



637 



hoe. In cultivating the Swiss chard, the plants are frequently watered during summer, to promote the 

 succulency of the stalks ; and in winter they are protected by litter, and sometimes earthed up, partly for 

 this purpose, and partly to blanch the stalks. Fresh chards are thus obtained from August to May. 

 The mangold is often transplanted, especially in field-culture, but this being foreign to our present purpose, 

 we take leave of it. When the garden sorts of white beet are transplanted, the proper time is during 

 moist weather in May or June. The distance from plant to plant maybe from ten to fourteen inches, 

 much of the advantage of transplanting depending on the room thus afforded the plants ; together with 

 the general disposition of transplanted annuals, with fusiform roots, as the turnip, carrot, &c. to throw out 

 leaves and lateral radicles. 



3785. Gathering. The most succulent and nearly full-grown leaves being gathered as wanted, others 

 will be thrown out in succession. The root is too coarse for table use. 



3786. To save seed. Proceed as in growing the seed of red beet. 



SuBSECT. 3. Orache, or Mountain Spinage. Atrdplex hortensis, L. (Blackw. t. 99.) 

 Polyg. Moncec. L. and ChenopodecB, B. P. Arroche, Fr. ; Meldekraut, Ger. ; and 

 Atrepiccy Ital. 



3787. The orache is a hardy annual, a native of Tartary, and introduced in 1548. The 

 stem rises three or four feet high ; the leaves are oblong, variously shaped, and cut at the 

 edges, thick, pale-green, and glaucous, and of a slightly acid flavor. It produces flowers 

 of the color of the foliage in July and August. There are two varieties, the white or 

 pale-green ; and the red or purple-leaved. 



3788. Use. The leaves are. used as spinage, and sometimes also the tender stalks. 

 The stalks are good only while the plant is young ; but the larger leaves may be picked 

 off in succession throughout the season, leaving the stalks and smaller leaves untouched, 

 by which the latter will increase in size. The spinage thus procured is very tender, and 

 much esteemed in France. 



3789. Culture. The orache is raised from seeds, which should be sown on a rich deep soil in August or 

 September ; sow in drills from one foot to eighteen inches asunder, keep the ground clear of weeds during 

 the autumn, and in spring thin the plants to four or six inches in the row. Stir the soil occasionally till 

 the plants come into flower in July, when the crop may be considered over. Spring sowings, however, 

 are made in places where this sort of spinage is in demand. In the market-gardens round Paris, the 

 plant is often cultivated in the broad-cast way, like common spinage. 



3790. To save seed. Leave a few plants of the most tender and succulent constitutions 

 to blossom, and they will produce abundance of seeds in August. 



SuBSECT. 4. Wild Spinage. — Chenopodium bonus Henricus, L. {Eng. Bot. 1033.) 

 Pent. Dig. L. and Chenopodece, B. P. Anserine, Fr. ; Henkelkraut, Ger. ; and 

 Anserino, Ital. 



3791. TAe i<;i7rf s/jma^-e is an indigenous perennial, common byway-sides in loamy 

 soils. The stem rises a foot and a half high, is round and smooth at the base, but up- 

 wards it becomes grooved and angular. The leaves are large, alternate, triangular, 

 arrow-shaped, and entire on the edges. The whole plant, but especially the stalks, is 

 covered with minute transparent powdery particles. 



3792. Use. While young and tender, the leaves are used as a substitute for spinage, 

 for which purpose, Curtis observes, it is cultivated in Lincolnshire, in preference to the 

 garden sort. Withering observes, that the young shoots, peeled and boiled, may be eaten 

 as asparagus, which they resemble in flavor. 



3793. Culture. The plant may be propagated by dividing the roots ; or the seed may be " sown in March 

 or April, in a small bed. In the course of the following September, in showery weather, the seedlings 

 are transplanted into another bed which has been deeply dug, or rather trenched to the depth of a foot 

 and a half, the roots being long and striking deep, while at the same time they are branched; so that 

 each plant should have a foot or fifteen inches of space. Next season the young shoots, with their leaves 

 and tops, are cut for use as they spring up, leaving perhaps one head to each plant, to keep it in vigor. 

 The bed continues productive in this way for many successive years. The first spring cutting may be got 

 somewhat earlier, by taking the precaution of covering the bed with any sort of litter during the severity 

 cf winter." {Neill.) ■ ' 



SuBSECT. 5. New. Zealand Spinage. — Tetragonia expansa. (Plant, grass. 113.) Icos. 

 'Di-Pentag. L. and Ficoidece, J. 

 3794. New Zealand spinage is a half hardy annual, with numerous branches, round, 

 succulent, pale-green, thick, and strong, somewhat procumbent, but elevating their ter- 

 minations. The leaves are fleshy, growing alternately at small distances from each 

 other, on shortish petioles ; they are of a deltoid shape, but rather elongated, being from 

 two to three inches broad at the top, and from three to four inches long ; the apex is al- 

 most sharp-pointed, and the two extremities of the base are bluntly rounded ; the whole 

 leaf is smooth, with entire edges, dark-green above, below paler, and thickly studded 

 with aqueous tubercles ; the mid-rib and veins project conspicuously on the under sur- 

 face. The flowers are sessile in the alse of the leaves, small and green, and, except that 

 they show their, yellow anthera; when they expand, they are very inconspicuous. The 

 fruit when ripe has a dry pericarp of a rude shajJe, with four or five hornlike processes 

 enclosing the seed, which is to be sown in its covering. It is a native of New Zealand, 

 by the sides of woods in bushy sandy places, and though not used by the inhabitants, yet 

 being considered by the naturalists who accompanied Captain Cook, as of the same 



