630 



LEGUMINACEOUS ESCULENTS. 



by which the sap is retained better than if the heads were cut off. If after 

 gathering any of the varieties it should be suspected by the cook that the 

 heads contain slugs, caterpillars, or earth-worms, by plunging them into 

 salt and water for a minute or two the vermin will be driven from their 

 hiding-places among the leaves and left in the water. All the kinds may 

 be preserved in a growing state through the winter under an opaque roof, 

 the sides being opened on the south side on fine days ; and the heading 

 kinds, by burying in the soil (1379). Being gathered, none of the kinds 

 will keep fresh above two or three days ; but chopped into small pieces, 

 and put in a cask in layers, each layer sprinkled with salt, a liquor is 

 formed, immersed in which the cabbage, turnip, and every other crucifer- 

 ous plant, will keep through the winter, and thus is formed the sauerkraut 

 of the Germans. To save seed of any variety, select the finest specimens, 

 and take care that no other brassicaceous plant is in flower at the same time 

 within a considerable distance of it (866 and 1366) ; and the more 

 specimens there are planted together of any one variety for the purpose of 

 seeding, the less liable they are to become adulterated. A solitary brassica- 

 ceous plant can never be depended on unless many miles indeed remote from 

 any other ; whereas a body of fifty or so will produce the sort generally 

 true, even although not far from other varieties. The seed will keep 

 four or five years ; but as after a year it is liable, in common with other 

 seeds, to the attacks of the weevil, Curculio Z., it ought to be exposed every 

 winter during severe frost in a thin layer for an hour or two, which will 

 completely destroy vitality both in the eggs and the insects. The place of 

 the cabbage tribe, in a rotation of crops, may be after or befoi'e the legu- 

 minous tribe, or the Alliaceae (924). 



1384. Substitutes for the cabbage tribe are to be found in the Cruciferaa 

 generally, the tender leaves of almost all of which may be used as greens, and 

 the embryo heads of flowers as substitutes for broccoli. Among the best sub- 

 stitutes are the leaves of the turnip when running to flower, the wild cab- 

 bage, and the garlic cress or sauce-alone. Erysimum Alliaria L. (Alliaria 

 Adan.) The spinaceous and acetariaceous esculents may also, in general, be 

 used as greens. Nettles are a very common substitute, and an excellent one 

 when gathered tender. 



Sect. 11. — Leguminaceous Esculents,. 



The leguminaceous esculents of British gardens are chiefly the pea, bean, 

 and kidney-bean, all of which thrive best in a deep free soil. In every gar- 

 den they occupy a larger space than any other rotation crop, but they do not 

 occupy it long ; the main crops arriving at maturity in from three to four 

 months. 



SoBSECT. I. — The Pea. 



1385. The pea, Pisum sativum L. (Pois, Fr.), is a tendrilled climbing 

 annual, a native of the South of Europe, but arriving at maturity in the 

 course of the summer in British gardens. No vegetable is more highly 

 prized than green peas, and few are more nourishing when nearly ripe, or 

 ripe. The seeds alone are eaten in most kinds, and they are boiled with 

 mint to correct a slight tendency which they have to flatulency ; but the 

 entire pod is eaten of the sugar pea, in the manner of that of the kidney- 

 bean, the outside edges of the pods being stripped off^ previously to boiling. 



