256 THE COTTAGE GARDENER. j UL t 7. 
and well coloured; and it is amusing to observe the 
amazement with which they are regarded hy foreigners ; 
■ Galling up such exclamations as Mon Dieu! Sucre! 
The sorts which have been most general are Keens' 
Seedlings, hut now we have the British Queen, which, 
for its splendid flavour, is not likely soon to he sur¬ 
passed. We have observed a few of the old Roseberrg, 
\ hut very few; the larger growing varieties have well 
| nigh expelled it. Still, however, it is not altogether to 
j he lost sight of as one of the best for preserving. The 
prices which Strawberries are making is from 6d. to Od. 
per pottle, and 'Jd. to Is. per punnet. In the punnet 
you are not so likely to be deceived, as you have a 
better opportunity of examining the fruit; hut in the 
pottle you can never tell what there is at the bottom of 
the long funnel-shaped basket. 
There have been large arrivals of foreign Cherries, 
which are neither ripe nor sound; however can people 
he so infatuated as to encourage this kind of trade? 
Still, unripe and half rotten as they are, they make, 
wholesale, from 2s. Cd. to 3s. per dozen pounds, and 
Cd. per pound retail, in some cases 9d. We have had 
a few Kentish Magdukcs in, hut they cannot he called 
ripe. In the fruiterers’ windows are still fine specimens 
of Black Tartaricms, forced, which make from Is. 6d. to 
2s. Cd. per pound, and well worth all the money. Green 
Gooseberries are very abundant, indeed, the salesmen 
hardly know what to do with them, even at Is. per 
sieve. Melons are plentiful, at from 2s. Gd. to 5s. each. 
Grapes, 3s. to 5s per pound. Peaches and Nectarines, 
12s. to 20s. per dozen. 
Vegetables are also plentiful. Peas are very plen¬ 
tiful and good, the White sorts make Is. Gd. to 2s. per 
bushel, and the Blue 2s. to 2s. Gd., at which prices there 
is a ready sale. Old Potatoes being had, and the new, 
generally speaking, waxy, from remaining so long out 
of the ground, causes a good demand for Peas. New 
Potatoes are plentiful, and make quite as good prices as 
last week. Cabbages are making from Gd. to Is. per 
dozen. Cauliflowers, 2s. per dozen. Rhubarb, 2d. per 
bundle. Asparagus, Is. to 3s. Gd. per bundle of 100. 
There is a great profusion of Flowers of all kinds. 
Roses, Fuchsias, Mignonette, Ericas, Cinerarias, and, in 
short, some of every thing now in bloom may be found 
! here. H. 
SEA-KALE.—No. 2. 
( Continued from page 218.) 
I must now point to the forcing of this .dainty vege¬ 
table, so as to have a constant succession on the table 
any day between the middle of November and the 
period—say the beginning of April—when it comes 
from the open ground. According to the old adage, 
“Many men, many minds,” and it is thus with Sea-kale 
forcing—-no old practitioner likes to be bounded by dry 
rules. This being as it should be, I shall certainly not 
assume the office of dictator. I will simply detail the 
mode by which, for the last half-score years, my worthy 
employer’s table has been constantly furnished at the 
periods above stated; and I think I am justified in 
adding,^ almost without the intermission of even half-a- 
dozen days at any one period within those bounds. 
My last paper, it will be remembered, wound up the 
out-door cultivation, leaving off at the point where all 
the stocks intended for the forcer were taken up, and 
“heeled,” as gardeners have it—that is, buried close 
together overhead in soil. 
It is now hard on twenty years since I put my 
employer to the charge of a Sea-kale blanching pot. 
The remains of these antiquated things are still here, 
and I have found a very good use for them at various 
periods. I have reared early cauliflowers under them 
in spring, and have frequently given them the important 
office, through November and December, of protecting 
groups of Bath Cos lettuces for a late salad bowl. 
I should not, however, advise our readers to have 
such toys made specially for such uses; yet, in this 
respect, they at least beat the old spinning-wheel. We 
have here a mushroom - house about twenty-five feet 
long, and on one side of this is a narrow box, like a 
corn-bin, about ten feet long, by some thirty inches in 
width. In this little hole all the Sea-kale before adverted 
to is forced : having this little box properly occupied, 
our family seldom demand forced Kale in vain. Twenty- 
six years since, when I first set foot here, I found, on 
the 1st of March, a bed of Kale under forcing, 120 feet 
long by six feet wide, and this bed was piled over with 
hot dung and leaves from the park, to the depth of 
three feet from end to end. Coming, as I did, from the 
purlieus of Wimbledon Common, I really was startled 
at this array. We certainly used to get a few loads of 
horse-cliesnut, elm, lime, and other leaves, now and 
then; but such a mass, and much of it oak-leaves, 
showed a degree of John Bullism I was not prepared 
for. However, fine as it all looked, and hot as a stew- 
pan, you might have spent two hours in hunting out 
1 a dish of Kale. It was, indeed, a most ceremonious 
affair. An old fellow who served the kitchens, and 
whose portrait would not have disgraced the frontispiece 
of “ Talpa,” was a tremendous Sea-kale hunter. Armed 
with a bunch of twigs, he would sally forth, pikel (alias 
fork) in hand, regardless of the pelting storm, in search 
of a dish of Kale. The bed being wide, poor Tom was 
obliged to take Joe with him, and routing this burning 
mass to the very bottom, you might have seen these 
persevering men, one on either side, hunting out the 
Kale. What was ready, if any could be found, was, of 
course, all but ready cooked. That which promised to 
come next, if the heat would let it, was signalised by a 
twig with two notches cut in it; and those crowns 
which had escaped utter destruction, and were actually 
vegetating, had a stick with one notch ; the indecisive 
ones were left to their fate. Surely this was perseverance. 
This sort of game was played for another year or two, 
only in the descending scale; and, in the meantime, I 
felt assured it was all perfect nonsense. Having studied 
“ Knight’s Physiological Papers,” and closely watched 
the pages of Loudon, who then, almost single-handed, 
pointed to progress, I felt assured that there must come 
a better, a more economical, plan than the Sea-kale pot; 
in fact, the rising demands for fermenting materials for 
other purposes alone forced the question. I will pass 
by the intermediate grades by which I have arrived at 
a satisfactory course of practice, and proceed to the 
present position of the question. 
The bin where the crowns arg forced is about forty 
inches in depth; it rises about lialf-a-yard above the 
floor-level. The droppings from hot manure is the 
material used for heat; and it is my practice, at all 
times, to shake over what hot manure I can get hold of 
honestly; and, in shaking, to disengage some of the 
most powerful of the droppings. These are considered 
a prime article, not to be used in every-day affairs. 
Such droppings are placed about two feet deep in the 
bin, which has a lid, but they are slightly fermented 
previously. This bin holds about three, sometimes four, 
