NASTURTIUM 
Nasturtium {Tropceolum, majus, mmus and tuberosum). 
There are two varieties of the ordinary Nasturtium used as 
vegetables, the large form of Majus and the smaller kind 
Minus : the one is more common than the other, indeed 
the larger variety may be seen in most gardens being 
grown for ornament or for use in salads and pickles. Both 
kinds, Majus and Minus, are natives of Peru, and are 
perennial, but here they are treated as annuals, and some 
of the more recently introduced varieties, which are 
doubtless selections from the older forms, are really 
very beautiful garden plants. My note more concerns 
their value as vegetables than as salad plants. For 
the latter purpose, leaves and flowers are used, but 
it is the fruits which are doubtless more useful, and 
these are largely used when pickled in vinegar and by 
many persons are preferred to Capers, which they very 
much resemble. In their native regions, where the 
plants grow very quickly, the green portion of the plants 
is at times used as a vegetable and the points of the 
shoots eaten for salads. Their culture is most simple, 
but the plant does best in a light soil with a warm 
aspect, and though they may be grown in almost any 
corner of the garden, they well repay good culture if 
grown for their fruit. Seed is best sown in the spring, 
and if grown to stakes like Peas they bear heavy crops 
and flower and continue to form fruits till cut down by 
frost. Grown in rows, at least 4 feet should be allowed 
between the rows for the first named Majus, as it obtains 
a height of 8 feet or more, and the plants delight in 
