C 190] 



XXI. Observations on forcing Garden Rhubarb. By Mr. 

 Wlliam Stothard, Under Gardener in the Experi- 

 mental Fruit and Kitchen Garden Department of the 

 Garden of the Horticultural Society at Chiswick. 



Read March 6, 1827. 

 The cultivation of Rhubarb for culinary purposes has of 

 late years been much practiced in private gardens. The forced 

 footstalks of the leaves are also in much request during 

 winter and spring, in the market of the metropolis. The 

 easiest and most efficacious method of producing these, being 

 therefore an object of importance, experiments have been 

 tried in the Department under my charge in order to ascer- 

 tain this point, and I have now to report that which appears 

 to have been the most successful. 



The subject of forcing and blanching Rhubarb has, at dif- 

 ferent times, occupied the attention of the Society, and Papers 

 on it have been published in the Transactions. At an early 

 period* Mr. Hare pointed out the superiority of the blanched 

 leaves ; and stated the accidental discovery in the Chelsea 

 Botanic Garden of that effect having been produced in spring, 

 by simply raising earth over the crown of the roots. In 1818,+ 

 an account, by Mr. J udd, of a method of forcing Rhubarb grow- 

 ing in open borders, by means of dung heaped over a wooden 

 frame, was printed. Subsequently, in the same year, appeared t 



* Horticultural Transactions, Vol. ii. page 25 S. 

 f Horticultural Transactions, Vol. iii. page 143. 

 t Horticultural Transactions, Vol. iii. page 154. 



