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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



blanching, which makes the vegetable matter acted upon whiter 

 and more tender, renders it at the same time milder in taste and 

 more palatable, if naturally of a strong flavour. 



M. Henri Lecoq, a well-known professor of botany, published 

 in the year 1851 a short paper, in which he maintained that 

 upwards of two hundred neglected or despised native plants 

 might be converted by blanching into very good and useful vege- 

 tables. Of course the assertion was made half in jest, but still a 

 good deal of truth underlies the apparently paradoxical opinion 

 of M. Lecoq. In later years MM. Pallieux and Bois, the learned 

 authors of that very suggestive book, " La potager cVun curieux" 

 tried numerous experiments in the same direction, and succeeded 

 in obtaining very good salading from vegetables not generally 

 used for that purpose, as Salsafy, Scorzonera, and Skirret, and 

 even from such wild plants as Cirsium oleraceum, Helminthia 

 echioides, and Smyrnium Olusatrum. 



Although a very large number of plants can be made esculent 

 by blanching, it becomes evident, upon careful consideration, that 

 those only can be made use of profitably which, firstly, form 

 rather large roots or crowns wherein a good provision of nutri- 

 ment can be stored, and this being converted into new growth by 

 the action of heat and moisture, supplies fresh vegetable matter 

 during the winter months, when such salading is made more 

 valuable by the scarcity of open-air vegetables ; secondly, such as 

 are sufficiently hardy for their roots or crowns to be handled, 

 even in rough weather, without too great a danger of their being 

 destroyed by cold or damp ; and, thirdly, such as are easily grown 

 in the first stage of their cultivation, and so supply a compara- 

 tively inexpensive material for the winter treatment, which is 

 always more or less costly. 



Those characters of bulk, hardiness, and cheapness are all 

 forthcoming in the two vegetables which it is my purpose to 

 introduce as salading to the notice of the Eoyal Horticultural 

 Society in this paper, namely Dandelion and the Common or 

 Bitter Chicory. 



Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale, Wiggers, or Leontodon 

 Taraxacum, L.) is a native wild plant, common on well-drained 

 meadows and pastures, and conspicuous by its large bright 

 yellow flowers and winged seeds. The stem is reduced to a 

 short, conical, subterranean body, on which are inserted 



