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GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



compartment of tolerably rich, well-dug soil, five feet apart 

 each way. Remove the long straggling leaves. Water 

 in dry weather until they take root. Keep the ground 

 loose about them, hoeing up all the weeds. When the 

 plants are eighteen inches or two feet high they must be 

 blanched. 



The decayed leaves must be removed, and the rest 

 closed together by strings or bass matting. Then bind up 

 the plant carefully with twisted bands of hay or straw, 

 beginning at the root. Select a dry day or the plants will 

 rot. Bind up two-thirds of the height of the stem, then 

 dig and break the ground and earth up to nearly the same 

 height. As the plants grow, continue to tie and earth up. 

 Watering liberally in hot weather is the only way to keep 

 them from seeding. When the plants are blanched eigh- 

 teen inches or two feet, they are fit for use. They will 

 blanch fully in about two or three weeks. Do not let the 

 earth get between the leaves or they will decay. They 

 may be also sown in the rows where they are to remain, 

 and thinned gradually to the proper distance. 



For Seed. — Leave a few full-grown plants unblanched 

 to stand the winter and they will shoot up to seed the 

 next season. 



Use. — The stalks rendered white and tender by blanch- 

 ing, are used in stews, soups, and salads, the leaves and 

 stems being white and crisp for two feet in length. The 

 plant is not very nutritious. 



Cyjperus Esculentus — Ohufas or Earth Almonds. 



A perennial, indigenous to Southern Europe, growing 

 in the form of a rush, some three feet high, producing 

 small tubers the size of a common bean, and called by the 

 Valencians " Chufas." It was one of the plants distributed 



