DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 
43 
Mushrooms 
eighteen inches deep In this bed plant the broken 
pieces of spawn six inches apart covering the whole 
with two inches of light soil and protect from cold and 
severe rains The mushrooms will appear in about six 
weeks. Water with luke warm water, and only when 
quite dry. 
MUSTARD. 
Fr Mcvtarde —Ger Senf. 
Mustard is not only used as a condiment but the 
green leaves are used as a salad or cut and boiled like 
spinage. 
Culture —Should be the same as that of cress, and 
the seed should be sown at intervals in order to secure 
a succession 
Southern Giant Curled.— This mustard is very 
highly esteemed in the south, where the seed is sown in 
the fall, and the plants used very early in the spring as 
a salad The seed is brown, and produces plants which 
grow about two feet high and form enormous bunches, 
six o/ 'which will fill an ordinary barrel 
White English.— This is the kind usually preferred 
for salad. The leaves are light green, mild and tender 
when young • seed light yellow. 
Brown Italian. —This is a larger plant than the pre¬ 
ceding with much darker leaves : seed brown and more 
pungent. 
NASTURTIUM. 
Fr Capucine — Ger. Kapuzinerblume. 
Tall Mixed. — Cultivated both for use and ornament 
Its beautiful orange colored flowers serve as a garnish 
for dishes, and the young leaves are excellent for 
salads. The flower buds scarcely formed, and the 
green seed pods preserved m vinegar, make a 
pickle greatly esteemed by many 
Culture. —Sow early in spring, in drills one inch 
deep, by the side of a fence, trellis work, cr some 
other supocrt to climb upon. They will thrive in 
good ground, in almost any situation but are more 
productive in a light soil. For other varieties^ 
sec Flower Seeds 
OKRA. 
• Fr. Gombo —Ger Ocher. 
This is an annual from the West Indies, culti¬ 
vated for its green seed pods, which are used in 
soups or stewed and served like asparagus. It is 
highly esteemed at the 
south, where it is con¬ 
sidered a very whole¬ 
some vegetable 
Culture - The 
seeds are sown thinly 
in dry warm soil, in 
shallow drills two feet 
apart. Cov’ei liie seeds 
lightly After the plants 
are up thin them out 
to nine inches apart • 
hoe frequently and 
draw a little earth to 
the stems as they con¬ 
tinue to grow Gather 
the pods when quite 
green, and about an inch and a half long 
Tall White. —About six feet high ; pods eight to ten 
inches long, an inch and a half thick at the stem, taper¬ 
ing t6 a point. 
Dwarf White.—Two and a half feet high , pods a 
foot long: very productive ; is said to produce pods at 
every joint. 
ONION. 
Fr. Ognon. —Ger. ZwiebeZtt. 
No vegetable is more extensively known and culti¬ 
vated than the Onion It has been the common season¬ 
ing for soups and meats of all nations from time imme¬ 
morial and in cooking, it is indispensable. It posseses 
valuable medicinal properties, and is used in colds and 
coughs, as an expectorant It contains considerable 
nutriment and is tolerably wholesome especially if 
boiled • raw, fried or roasted, they are not very digesti¬ 
ble. Eating a few leaves of parsley will destroy, in a 
measure, the unpleasant smell they impart to the breath. 
There is no vegetable where the quality of the seed 
exerts a greater influence upon the crop than in onions. 
On our trial grounds we have found a difference of over 
400 per cent, in the marketable product of two rows of 
onions, planted the same day, side by side, thinned to 
the same number of plants to the rod hoed and treated 
in every way precisely alike, the difference being en¬ 
tirely owing to the seed which were samples of stock 
offered us by two growers. Here then, if no where else, 
the greatest care should be taken to secure the best pos¬ 
sible seed Seed grown in the north will be pretty sure 
to produce better onions when sown in the Southern 
States, than southern grown seed. 
We make a specialty of onion seed and grow and dis¬ 
pose of many tons annually The demand for our seed 
has increased so rapidly that we are yearly increasing 
our facilities for growing. We harvested over forty 
thousand pounds of onion seed in one season on our own 
