NEW ZEALAND SPINACH. 



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grit, and put in boiling water with a teaspoonful of salt ; 

 bdil ten or lifteen minutes. When done, drain through a 

 colander, press out the moisture, and serve with butter 

 and a little salt. 



Tetragonia Expansa — New Zealand Spinach. 



An annual plant brought by Sir Joseph Banks, from 

 New Zealand, in 1772, with thick, succulent, pale green 

 procumbent leaves, deltoid in shape, and with small green 

 inconspicuous flowers. It grows four or five feet high. 

 The common Spinach fails entirely in summer, but this 

 variety, if well watered, grows freely and produces 

 leaves of the greatest succulency in hot weather. White 

 Beet or Swiss Chard, however, is a vegetable more easily 

 cultivated and preferable in every way for general culti- 

 vation in our climate. 



Culture. — New Zealand Spinach may be sowed early in 

 April. The best soil is a deep, moist loam, deeply dug 

 and enriched by a liberal supply of good manure. Make 

 the drills three feet apart, and scatter the seed about six 

 inches apart in the drill, and cover them an inch deep. 

 Thin out the plants, when well established, to twenty 

 inches apart. Those taken up after filling any vacancies in 

 the drill maybe reset in another bed. Take them up with 

 the trowel and balls of earth, so as not to check their growth. 

 Water until the plants are established, and liberally in dry 

 weather all summer. Keep the ground thoroughly tilled 

 and free from weeds, that the plants may make a luxuri- 

 ant growth. In five or six weeks the young leaves may 

 begin to be picked off. Preserve the leading shoot, and the 

 branches will continue long in bearing, as in autumn they 

 survive a pretty heavy frost. Twenty plants are enough 

 Seed may be gathered as it ripens, dried carefully in 

 the shade and put up in papei bags. 



