RHUBARB. 



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get the seed out of the pods. A very good way is, first to make 

 the whole plant, pods and all, dry in the sun, and then to hang the 

 plant up by the heels in some dry and airy place, and rub the seed 

 out of the pods as you want it. In the pod, it will keep a great 

 many years, perhaps twenty, and perhaps fifty ; but out of the pod 

 it will keep well not above two. 



176. RAMPION.'-This is the smallest seed of which we have 

 any knowledge. A thimble-full, properly distributed, would sow- 

 an acre of land. It is sowed in the spring, in very fine earth. Its 

 roots are used in soup and salads. Its leaves are also used in salads. 

 One yard square is enough for any garden. 



177. RAPE. — This field-plant for sheep: but it is very 

 good to sow like white mustard, to use as salad, and it is sowed 

 and raised in the same way. 



178. RHUBARB. — The cZocA, which is a mischievous weed, 

 is the native English rhubarb. Its name is found in the list of 

 seeds in Chapter IV., because that list is the same as the list in 

 my American Gardener ; and, in America, dock-leaves are eaten 

 in the spring, and are carried to market in great quantities to be 

 sold. But, in this country, W'here the winter does not sweep every 

 thing green from the face of the earth, nobody thinks of cultivating 

 the dock, which is one of the most mischievous weeds that we 

 have. In that list also is the dandelion ; because that plant also 

 is used as greens in the spring ; and, if the plants be fine, and you 

 lay a tile or bit of board upon them to bleach them, or tie them up 

 as directed for endive, they make very good salad in the month of 

 April ; but, not being worth cultivation in a garden, and being a 

 mere weed, they have not been mentioned by me as articles to be 

 cultivated. I am now to speak, not of the dock, but of the foreign 

 rhubarb, of which there are two sorts, the stalks of the leaves of 

 the one being pretty nearly red, and those of the leaves of the 

 other being of a greyish green colour. The latter is the finer of 

 the two, grows larger than the other, and the flavour is better. 

 The uses of the rhubarb are very well known, and it is known also 

 that the only part used is the inside of the stalk of the leaf, which 

 is fit for use towards the latter end of April, when it supplies, by 

 anticipation, the place of green gooseberries in all the various 

 modes in which these latter are applied. The propagation of the 

 rhubarb maybe either from seed or from offsets. It bears seed in 

 prodigious abundance, and that seed precisely resembles the seed of 

 the dock. It is sowed any time in the spring, in the same manner 



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