DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 



43 





Mushrooms 



eighteen inches deep In this bed plant the broken 

 pieces of spawn six inches apart covering the whole 

 with two inches of light soil and protect from cold and 

 severe rains The mushrooms will appear in about six 

 weeks. Water with luke warm water, and only when 

 quite dry. 



MUSTARD. 



Fr .^fcnf(irde.—G^r Sen/. 



Mustard is nor only used as a condiment, but the 

 green leaves are used as a salad or cut and boiled like 

 spinage. 



Culture —Should be the same as that of cress, and 

 the seed should be sown at intervals in order to secure 

 a succession 



Southern Giant Curled.— This mustard is very 

 highly esteemed in the south, where the seed is sown in 

 the fall, and the plants used very early in the spring as 

 a salad The seed is brown, and produces plants which 

 grow about two feet high and form enormous bunches, 

 six of which will fill afi ordinary barrel 



"White English.— This is the kind usually preferred 

 for salad. The leaves are light green, mild and tender 

 when young • seed light yellow. 



Brown Italian.— This is a larger plant than the pre- 

 ceding with much darker leaves ; seed brown and more 

 pungent. 



NASTURTIUM. 



Fr. Capucine. — Ger. Kap%izinerbli*me. 



Tall Mixed. — Cultivated both for use and ornament. 



Its beautiful, orange colored flowers serve as a garnish 



-m^^jx 





Neisturtium. 



Okra. 



for dishes, and the young leaves are excellent for 

 salads. The flower buds scarcely formed, and the 

 green seed pods preserved m vinegar, make a 

 pickie greatly esteemed by many. 



Culture —Sow early m spring, in drills one inch 

 <L deep, by the side of a fence, trellis work, or some 

 other supncrt to climb upon. They will thrive in 

 good ground, m almost any situation but are more 

 productive in a light soil. For other varieties, 

 see Flower Seeds. 



OKRA. 



Fr. Gomio —Ger. Ocker. 

 This is an annual from the West Indies, culti- 

 vated for its green seed pods, which are used in 

 soups, or stewed and served like asparagus. It is 

 highly esteemed at the 

 south, where it is con- 

 sidered a ver>- whole- 

 some vegetable 



Culture — The 

 seeds are sown thinly 

 in dn'. warm soil, in 

 shallow drills two feet 

 apart. Cover the seeds 

 lightly Afterthe plants 

 are up thin rhem out 

 to nine inches apart • 

 hoe frequently and 

 draw a little earth to 

 the stems as they con- 

 tinue to grow Gather 

 the pods when quite 

 green, and about an inch and a half long. 



Tall White, — About six feet high ; pods eight to ten 

 inches long, an inch and a half thick at the stem, taper- 

 ing to a point. 



Dwarf White.— Two and a half feet high , pods a 

 foot long : very productive ; is said to produce pods at 

 every joint. 



ONION. 



Fr. Og7io7i. — Ger. Zwieheln. 



No vegetable is more extensively known and culti- 

 vated than the Onion. It has been the common season- 

 ing for soups and meats, of all nations from time imme- 

 morial ; and in cooking, it is indispensable. It posseses 

 valuable medicinal properties, and is used in colds and 

 coughs, as an expectorant It contains considerable 

 nutriment and is tolerably wholesome especially if 

 boiled : raw, fried or roasted, they are not very digesti- 

 ble. Eating a few leaves of parsley will destroy, in a 

 measure, the unpleasant smell they impart to the breath 



There is no vegetable where the quality of the seed 

 exerts a greater influence upon the crop than in onions. 

 On our trial grounds we have found a difference of over 

 400 per cent, in the marketable product of two rows of 

 onions, planted the same day, side by side, thinned to 

 the same number of plants to the rod, hoed and treated 

 in every way precisely alike, the difference being en- 

 tirely owing to the seed which were samples of stock 

 offered us by two growers. Here then, if no where else, 

 the greatest care should be taken to secure the best pos- 

 sible seed Seed grown in the north will be pretty sure 

 to produce bettw onions wh^n sown in the Southern 

 States, than southern grown seed. 



We make a specialty of onion seed, and grow and dis- 

 pose of vtany tons annually The demand lor our seed 

 has increased so rapidly . that we are yearly increasing 

 our /acilitie% for growitig. We har\-ested over forty 

 thousand pounds 0/ onion seed in one season on our own 



