500 



THE CULTURE OF SALADS. 



all the dead leaves and other portions liable to produce 

 monldiness^ after which they are placed upright on the bed 

 and watered frequently with a rose watering-pot ; but, as 

 usual,, the waterings must be adapted to the heat of the bed. 

 From the time the Barbe begins to grow, these waterings 

 ought to be performed with great judgment, so as to prevent 

 the interior of the bundles from rotting. At the end of 

 fifteen or eighteen days, the salad is long enough to be 

 gathered. From the time given above the Chicory can be 

 blanched up to March and April ; after every gathering 

 however, the spent dung should be removed, and replaced 

 by a fresh supply, so as always to keep the bed at the same 

 degree of warmth. 



In the market gardens of Yiroflay large quantities of 

 wild Chicory are cultivated. It is sown broadcast towards 

 the end of the month of May or the beginning of June. 

 The following February it is covered with an inch 

 and a half of leaf mould, or, if that cannot be procured, 

 mould from the pathways. Ten or twelve days afterwards 

 it is cut just where the two kinds of earth join. Two or 

 three gatherings are generally made, after which it is 

 allowed to remain until the following year. 



ScAROLLE (Broad-leaved Batavian Endive). — This fine salad 

 forms a very considerable item in the culture of the Paris 

 market gardens. It is deserving of being generally grown 

 in England, being easy of cultivation, very large, and form- 

 ing an excellent salad ; indeed, it is on the whole perhaps 

 the best we have. The mode of blanching is very simple : 

 the leaves of the plant are gathered up, and then a single 

 straw tied around them. This is only done five days before 

 the ScaroUe is ready for market. A crop of this was nearly 

 ready to blanch in September, it was the second crop of the 

 same plant that had been on the ground — the first and best 

 having been gathered a few weeks. Some of the finer 

 specimens of this second unblanched crop measured twenty 

 and twenty-one inches in diameter on September 7th, 1868. 



