106 



KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



asunder, and thin the plants to three inches apart in the row. 

 Keep the ground clean by nice hoeing until the middle of J uly 

 or thereabouts ; then take the plants up, cut the roots off to an 

 inch long, and cut off the tops of the leaves, but not too low 

 down ; make deep drills with a hoe at two feet apart. Plant 

 the leeks in these drills with a setting-stick, fastening them well 

 in the ground, and leaving the drill open. As the plants grow, 

 put to their sides the earth that came out of the drill, after 

 that, draw more up to them on each side from the interval ; and, 

 if your ground be really good, as it ought to be, each leek will 

 be as big as your wrist in the month of October. They will 

 stand the winter perfectly well without any covering at all ; but, as 

 a provision against hard frost, some plants should always be 

 taken up and put into earth or sand in a shed or in a cellar, for 

 the same reasons as those stated under the head of celery. Three 

 or four leeks that have stood the winter may be left at the end of 

 one of the rows, or, if you please, moved to another spot to pro- 

 duce seed which would be ripe in the month of August, and give 

 you enough for yourself, and for two or three neighbours. 



158. LETTUCE.— This great article of the garden is milky, 

 refreshing, and pleasanter to a majority of tastes than almost any 

 other plant. So necessary is it deemed as the principal ingredient 

 of a good salad, that it is, in France and America, generally called 

 ^' Salad/' and scarcely ever by any other name. It is therefore a 

 thing worthy of particular attention, not only as to propagation 

 and cultivation, but as to sorts. The way to sow lettuce in the 

 natural ground is this ; make the ground rich to begin with, draw 

 the drills across the bed fifteen inches apart, sow the seed thinly 

 in these drills, and press the earth nicely down upon them, which 

 work is to be done as early as you can do it well, in the month of 

 March. When the plants come up, thin them quickly to four 

 inches apart. When they get to be about four or five inches high, 

 leave one and take up two throughout all the rows, and then hoe 

 the ground nicely between the remaining plants, having before- 

 hand made another bed to receive the plants thus taken up ; plant 

 these in rows across a bed, the rows fifteen inches apart and the 

 plants fifteen inches apart in the row^ : this is done with a little 

 setting-stick with which you must carefully fix the point of the 

 root in the ground, as directed in the case of the cabbage plant. 

 Atiother sowing in April, managed in just the same way, may be 



