252 



LITTLE KNOWN VEGETABLES 



the price is at its height. So we get pretty well through the 

 year without the use of glass. Another little known good 

 thing to keep the income going until outdoors is w^arm enough 

 to start the new season is Witloof chicory, strictly a salad 

 plant, sold in the cities as endive. It requires very little care 

 and no particular skill. The roots are grown in the open 

 through the summer, being cultivated and cared for as time 

 will permit, the object being to get a large vigorous root. 

 When frost comes, the top is cut off, care being taken not to 

 injure the crown, and the roots lifted and placed in the sand 

 floor of a cellar, or in a root cellar. If the sand is very dry, 

 it should be watered, and but very little water is needed. 

 We use none, because there is moisture enough to keep our 

 plants growing in good shape. We get from three to five 

 cuttings a winter, of one of the most delicious and expensive 

 salads sold in our cities, of which the supply nowhere near 

 reaches the demand. 



Other particularly good things that are not as well known 

 as they should be are the Montreal melons, bringing 

 $36.00 a dozen in the New York market. All Montreal melons 

 are not high quality, but the Mount Royal strain, which 

 can be obtained of Ewing & Sons, Toronto, Canada, is the 

 finest of that jumbo of cantaloupes. In strawberries by long 

 odds the best of the entire family is the Chesapeake, de- 

 veloped down in the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia peninsula 

 and distributed by W. F. Allen & Sons, Salisbury, Md. They 

 are very uniform in shape, always conical, are firm and hence 

 good shippers, and the best flavored of the entire family. 

 The best blackberry of the family, and the one willing to 

 stay where it is put, is the running vine or dewberry. The 

 Lucretia is a good one, but the Austin, a selection and a 

 very great improvement over the Lucretia, is superior and a 

 money-maker. Allen of Salisbury, Md., also handles this. 

 Alfalfa is another little known vegetable that is a money- 

 maker in itself, an absolute necessity for dairymen and 

 chicken raisers, and one of the best improvers of the soil 

 known to man, as it not only opens up the earth in good shape, 

 but fills it full of rootlets and in addition stores up a great 

 quantity of nitrogen from the air. The secret of success 



