104 



KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



above directed ; but, as there must be some vines to go up to the 

 full length, there might be a pole or two to each hill to carry up 

 four or six stout vines. The poles need not be long, and, if they 

 were not permitted to bear, the plant would be the stronger. 

 These hills would, every spring, send forth a prodigious number of 

 shoots to serve as tops. These, as was said before, are to be 

 cropped off close to the ground when they are four or five inches 

 long ; and the hills, when once established, will last for a life- 

 time, with the culture before mentioned and with a good digging 

 of the ground once every winter. 



153. HORSE-RADISH.— Asa I know of nothing quite 

 so pertinacious and pernicious as this : I know of nothing but fii e 

 which will destroy its powers of vegetation : and I have never yet 

 seen it clearly extirpated from ground which had once been filled 

 wath its roots and fibres. But, as a vegetable, it is a very fine 

 thing : its uses are well known, and to those uses it is applied by 

 all who can get it. It is generally dearer, in proportion to its 

 bulk, than any other vegetable, and much dearer, too. The trouble 

 which its cultivation gives, that is to say its encroachments, 

 causes it to be banished from small gardens ; and therefore it is 

 scarce, though so difficult to be destroyed. Any little bit of it, 

 w hether of fibre or of root, a bit not bigger than a pea, not longer 

 than the eighth of an inch, if it have a bit of skin or bark on it, 

 will grow. The butts of the leaves will grow, if put into the 

 ground, and it bears seed in prodigious abundance. The best 

 w ay to get horse-radish is to make holes a couple of feet deep 

 w ith a bar, and to toss little bits down to the bottom of the holes, 

 and then fill them up again. You will soon have a plantation of 

 horse-radish, the roots long, straight, thick and tender. A square 

 rod of ground, with the roots in it planted a foot apart every way. 

 Will, if kept clear of weeds, as it always ought to be and never is, 

 produce enough for a family that eats roast beef every day of their 

 lives. The horse-radish should be planted in the south-east or 

 south-west corner of the outside garden, near to the hedge, and 

 it ought to be resolved to prevent its encroachments beyond 

 the boundaries of the spot originally allotted to it. Every 

 antumn, that part of the ground which has been cleared during 

 the year, which might be about one third part of the piece, 

 ought to be deeply dug and replanted as before; and thus theie 

 will be a succession of young long roots ; for, after the horse- 



