>■•] 



LAVENDER, LEEK. 



105 



radish has borne seed once or twice, its root becomes hard, brown 

 on the outside, not juicy when it is scraped, and eats more like 

 little chips than like a garden vegetable : so that, at taverns and 

 eating-houses, there frequently seems to be a rivalship on the point 

 of toughness between the horse-radish and the beef-steak ; and it 

 would be well if this inconvenient rivalship never discovered itself 

 anywhere else. 



154. HYSSOP is a sort of half-woody shrub, something be- 

 tween a tree and an herbaceous plant. The flower-spikes are 

 used, fresh or dry, for medicinal purposes. It is propagated from 

 seed or from offsets. A very little of it is enough: a couple of 

 plants in the herb-bed may suffice for any family. 



155. JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE.—This plant bears at the 

 root, like a potatoe, which, to the great misfortune of many of the 

 human race, is everywhere but too well known. But this arti- 

 choke, which is also dug up and cooked b'ke a potatoe, has, at 

 any rate, the merit of giving no trouble either in the cultivation or 

 the propagation. A handful of the bits of its fruit, or even of its 

 roots, flung about a piece of ground of any sort, will keep bearing 

 for ever in spite of grass and weeds ; the difficulty being, not to 

 get it to grow, but to get the ground free from it when once it has 

 taken to growing. It is a very poor, insipid vegetable ; but, if you 

 have a relish for it, pray keep it out of the garden, and dig up the 

 corner of some field, or of some worthless meadow, and throw 

 some roots into it. 



156. LAVENDER.— A beautiful little well-known shrub of 

 uses equally well known, whether used in the flower or in the water 

 which is distilled from it. Like all other plants and trees, it may be 

 propagated from seed ; but it is easiest propagated from slips, taken 

 ofl" early in the spring, and planted in good moist ground in the 

 shade. When planted out, the plants should stand three feet apart. 

 The flower-stalks should be cut ofl^, whether for preserving in 

 flowers, or for distillation, before any of the blossoms begin to fall 

 ofl" ; just indeed as those blossoms begin to open wide. The lavender 

 plant grows large, and it should therefore be in the outer garden. 



157. LEEK. — This is a plant, which, for certain purposes, is 

 perferred to onions. The time for sowing is as early in the 

 spring as the weather and the ground will permit ; the latter 

 end of February, or very early in March. Sow in little drills 

 made across a bed of fine earth, put the rows eight inches 



