ENDIVE. 



101 



148. ENDIVE. — This is a plant used for salads, and is some- 

 times used, perhaps, in cookery. There is a curled sort, and one 

 that IS plain, or smooth-leaved. The curled is generally perferred 

 to the other, but perhaps there is very little difference in the qua- 

 hty. The lettuce, when to be had, is decidedly preferred to the 

 endive ; and therefore this latter is used for salad in autumn, and 

 through the winter as long as it can be had. If any one wish to 

 have endive in summer, it must be sowed early; but, about the 

 middle of the month of July, or, perhaps, a little before, is the 

 main time for sowing endive. If sowed much before, it generally 

 runs off to seed, and, in fact, it is so much ground and trouble 

 thrown away. Make a bed very fine, and sow the seed in drills at 

 eighteen inches apart, and about half an inch deep in the drill, the 

 earth being pressed down very closely upon the seed. The plants, 

 which will be quickly up, must be thinned as soon as possible to 

 eighteen inches in the row, and thus they will stand, throughout 

 the bed, at eighteen inches from each other. The leaf of the endive 

 goes off horizontally, and lies flat upon the ground ; and, if the 

 ground be good and rich, as it ought to be, and kept perfectly 

 clean, the points of the leaves will meet all over the ground, 

 though at distances so great ; but, if cramped for room, endive 

 can never be fine. When the plants have got something like their 

 full size, they are to be bleached before they be eaten ; for they 

 have a bitter and disagreeable taste, and are quite a coarse and 

 disagreeable thing, unless made white. The manner of bleaching 

 them is this. You take the plant, put your fingers under all the 

 leaves that touch the ground, gather the whole plant up in your 

 hands into a conical form, and then tie it round with matting, 

 which is to go several times round the plant, and which is to cause 

 the plant to end so pointedly at the top as to prevent rain or dew 

 from reaching the inside. When the plant has remained thus for 

 about a fortnight, you cut it off at the stem, take off the matting, 

 and you will find that ail the leaves, except those of the outside, 

 are become white and crisp, and free from bitterness of taste. To 

 have a succession of these in good order, you should begin at one 

 end of the bed and tie up a dozen or two once or twice a week ; 

 and, when you cut, always cut those that were tied up first ; but it 

 is very important to observe that this w^ork of bleaching or tying- 

 up must never be performed except when all the leaves of the 

 plants are perfectly dry. The great difficulty in the case of endive, 



