chap, vi.] THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. 147 
with a most beautiful little beetle, striped 
with red, black, and blue, which eats through 
the shoots close to the ground almost as soon 
as they appear. Asparagus is generally 
forced by covering the beds with manure, 
and by deepening the alleys between the 
beds, and filling them with manure also. 
Sea-Kale .—About seventy years ago, Dr. 
Lettsom, a celebrated physician and botanist 
of that day, happened to be travelling near 
Southampton, when he observed some plants 
pushing their way up through the sea-sand. 
Finding the shoots of these plants quite suc¬ 
culent, he enquired of some person in the 
neighbourhood if they were ever eaten, and 
was answered, that the country people had 
been in the habit of boiling these shoots and 
eating them as a vegetable from time imme¬ 
morial. The doctor tasted them, and found 
them so good, that he took some seed to his 
friend Mr. Curtis, the originator of the 
Botanical Magazine,” who had then a nur¬ 
sery in Lambeth Marsh. Mr. Curtis wrote 
a book about the plant which brought it 
jnto notice, and he sold the seed in small 
packets at a high price: and thus, this long 
l 2 
