492 THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. [Mahck. 
Sowing Borecole, or curled Kale. 
Towards the end of this month, you may sow a first crop of bore- 
cole, for autumn service. 
There are two principal sorts, the green and the brown; both 
very hardy plants, with tall stems, and full heads of thick fimbriate 
corled leaves, not cabbaging, and are desirable open greens for 
winter, &c. 
Let this seed be sown in an open exposure, distant from trees and 
close fences, as in such situations they are apt to draw up too fast, 
with long weak stalks; sow it broad-cast, and rake it in evenly: for 
other particulars, see the succeeding months. 
Borecole is extremely valuable for winter and spring greens, 
where the winter frost is not too powerful for it, particularly in all 
the southern states; it is the most hardy of the cabbage tribe, and 
in mild winters will stand tolerably well in the middle states. In 
the eastern states it will require to be taken up before the winter 
frosts sets in with much severity, planted in trenches up to the 
leaves, and covered occasionally with straw, or other light covering; 
the heads may be cut off as wanted, and in spring the stems, if taken 
up and planted out, will produce an abundance of most delicious 
sprouts. 
Of forking and dressing the Asparagus Beds. 
This work should be begun about the latter end of the month; 
for the purpose of digging or forking these beds, you should be 
provided with a proper fork, having three shorts tines, six to eight 
or nine inches long, perfectly flat, about an inch broad, and the ends 
of them rounded and blunt; ho'vever, in want of such, it may be 
performed with a small, short-pronged common dung-fork. 
In forking the beds, be careful to loosen every part to a moderate 
depth, but taking great care not to go too deep to wound the crowns 
of the roots. 
The above work of forking these beds is most necessary to be 
done every spring, to improve and loosen the ground, and to give 
free liberty for the buds to shoot up; also to give easy access to the 
sun, air, and showers of rain. 
The beds being forked, they must afterwards be raked even; ob- 
serving, if you do not rake them immediately after they are forked, 
to defer it no longer than the first week in April, for by that time the 
buds will begin to advance. 
Before raking the above beds, you may scatter thereon, a few 
radish and lettuce seeds, to pull up while young. 
As to the method of gathering or cutting asparagus, when ad- 
vanced to a proper growth for the table, it is generally most eligi- 
ble, to be furnished with an asparagus knife, having a straight, nar- 
row, taper blade, about six or eight inches long, and about an inch 
broad at the haft, narrowing to about half an inch at the point, 
which should be rounded off from the back; observing, when the 
