CULTURE OF SEA-CALE. 
167 
spring, the young heads which push through it have their leaves 
quite close together. Their appearance, when in this stale, being 
like small cabbages, must have first induced the inhabitants to eat 
them; and their delicacy and succulencv, added to their precocity, 
must have ultimately led to their cultivation in gardens. This took 
place probably about the middle of last century. 
In the first volume of the Transactions of the Horticultural Society, 
it is recommended, in a paper dated 1803, to grow sea-cale under large 
earthen pots; but these are very expensive, and difficult to manage; 
besides, the plants thus treated are not so productive as they are by 
the Bath method. My instructor in this method was Mr. M. Pear¬ 
son, who cultivated a large garden opposite the South-Parade, at 
Bath; and, although it is upwards of thirty years since he taught me, 
I do not find that his method has been improved upon. The seed 
is to be sown very thin, early in April, on a bed of four feet wide, 
which is to be kept clear of weeds during the summer. It is cer¬ 
tainly the best way to raise your own plants; but, as a year is lost 
in so doing, I should recommend the owners of small gardens to pro¬ 
cure them from some neighbouring nursery, as they will cost only 
from 3s. to 5s. per hundred, and a season is saved. In taking them 
up, be careful that their roots are not broken, or dried, by exposing 
them to the atmosphere; for in either case the plants will not thrive 
with so much vigour the following summer. 
Having procured the plants in the month of March or April, se¬ 
lect a part of the garden sloping to the sun : its breadth from east to 
west should be wider than its" depth from north to south, that the 
rains may the sooner run off the ground. The soil should be light, 
and dug two spades deep, with a moderate quantity of rotten dung 
well intermixed. Particular attention should be paid that every clod 
is well broken; for the roots run very deep. Then mark out the 
whole of the ground from east to west, into divisions of two feet three 
inches each ; down the centre of the second and every other division 
put in the plants one foot apart. These divisions I shall call the 
beds, and the others the paths; but remember to begin with one 
path, and finish at the farther end with another, and put short strong 
stakes at the corner of every bed. During the summer these paths 
are to be dug over at least three times, to the depth of ten inches, in 
order to render the soil extremely fine ; hut should it be of a close 
texture, then remove part of it, and bring in the place of what you 
remove, an equal quantity of sand. On no account use riddled 
ashes instead of sand, for their rugged surfaces injure the soft cellu¬ 
lar vessels of all roots, and hurt their soft expanding leaves. 
