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j lYj THE AMERICAN GARDENER. 145 



complete impossibility of preserving plants of the 

 fine sorts in the natural ground during the winter ; 

 and the great heat, which will not suffer those sorts 

 to have, if they be sowed in the natural ground in 

 the spring. — The hardy sorts are the green cab- 

 bage-lettuce (or hardy green,) and the brown-cab- 

 bage. These due fiat plants. Their outside leaves 

 spread forth upon the ground, and they curl into a 

 sort of loaf in the centre. The plants of these may 

 be preserved through the winter in the natural 

 ground, in the manner directed for Endive plants, 

 (which see under Endive) and may be sowed at the 

 same time for that purpose. But these are very 

 poor things. They have, though bleached at the 

 heart, a slimy feel in the mouth; and are not crisp 

 and refreshing. There are, I believe, twenty sorts, 

 two of which only it will be enough to mention, 

 green-coss and white-coss, the former of which is of 

 a darker green than the latter, is rather hardier, and 

 not quite so good. These, when true to their kind 

 and in a proper situation, rise up, and fold in their 

 leaves to a solid loaf, like a sugar-loaf cabbage, and, 

 in rich land, with good management, they will be- 

 come nearly as large. When you cut one of these 

 from the stem, and pull off its outside leaves, you 

 have a large lump of white enough for a salad for 

 ten people, unless they be French, and, then you 

 must have a lettuce to every person. Every body 

 knows how to sow lettuce-seed along a drill, in the 

 spring, to let the plants stand as thick as grass, and 

 to cut it along with a knife, and gather it up by 

 handfuls. But, this is not lettuce. It is herbage, 

 and really fit only for pigs and cows. It is a raw, 

 green. Dandelion, and is not quite so good. — The 

 plants of these fine sorts may, indeed, be kept 

 through the winter in the same manner, and with 

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