273 
TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, January 31, I860. 
Even as early as the twenty-sixth year of Elizabeth’s reign so 
much attention was paid to D ucks that they were marked as 
Swans are now. A man was then presented at Seaford, by a 
jury, for marking three ducks with his own mark, and cutting | 
out the owner’s marks. 
(For most of the preceding notes we are indebted to Roberts’s i 
Social History of the People of the Southern Counties of \ 
England.) 
SEA-KALE CULTURE in the OPEN GROUND. 
We insert the following in answer to the inquiries of “A 
Recent Subscriber, Littlehampton." 
There is no difficulty in having an abundant supply of this 
delicious esculent by Christmas in the ordinary way of growing it 
under the common Ivale-pots, or under common 12 or 15-inch 
flower-pots, with their holes stopped up by a cork or even by a 
bit of liayband twisted in firmly. The Kale-pot is the most 
convenient, on account of its having a cover or lid ; by removing 
which it can be seen whether the Kale is ready for cutting 
without having to move all the fermenting material to the bottom j 
of the pots, as must be the case when flower-pots are employed. 
The material for covering the pots with. —For this purpose wo 
prefer fallen leaves, as we fancy the Kale eats much sweeter than 
when fermenting dung is employed; but having abundance of 
leaves at our command, we always use them with a little long 
litter of any kind placed tidily over them to prevent the winds 
from blowing them about. 
This common method of obtaining both early and late Kale we 
prefer to all others. We grow a large quantity of it every year; 
and we begin cutting about Christmas, though sometimes earlier, 
and continue to do so in succession until we commence cutting 
Asparagus in abundance from the open ground. 
We generally make our first covering up about the first or 
second w r eek in November, covering about thirty pots to begin 
with; and about the 1st of January we cover about thirty more 
pots ; and towards the beginning of February, and sometimes 
again towards the end, we make our last covering with fermenting 
material. 
We have other beds four feet wide, which contain two row's of 
crowns, about two feet apart every way from each other. These 
crowns, when cleared of all their decayed leaves with the finger 
and thumb, and made clean and tidy, are dusted over with a 
little quicklime to destroy the slugs, &c. Each crown is then 
covered over with leaf mould and cinder ashes mixed together, 
the leaf mould being put through a coarse sieve. This keeps the 
crowns in the dark all the winter, and acts as a feeder and pro¬ 
tector, looking like so many little molehills. To this bed the 
pots are brought as they become liberated from the forcing-bed. 
Sometimes a little more ashes is put over the crowns when these ! 
pots are placed over them to exclude the light from the young 
shoots. Here nothing more is used than the pots—I mean no 
fermenting material is used. 
Situation of the beds. — The plot of ground allotted to Sea-kale 
should always be near the framing-ground for the convenience 
of conveying the fermenting material to and from it. Where the 
bed may be otherwise signifies little, so long as the sun can shine 
upon it six or eight hours in the day, and it i3 free from the 
shade and drip of trees. 
Soil. —The main point is a good, deep, rich, sandy soil, upon a 
dry bottom. This is alluded to in its botanical name Crambe, 
which comes from the word Krambos, meaning dry, because the 
plant naturally grows in sandy or stony soil. If the plot of 
ground which is wished to be allotted to it is not sufficiently 
deep it is easily made so by bringing other good soil to raise it to 
the desired depth. This can be readily and w r ell blended with 
the present garden soil to the depth of two feet and a half at the 
least. The working of the soil should be repeated several times 
previously to planting. 
The Planting. —The plot of ground may be lined out in four- 
and-a-half-feet-wide beds, and two-feet-wide alleys or paths be¬ 
tween the beds. Let the beds be marked out to take two rows of 
plants, two feet and a half apart from row to row in the bed, and 
two feet apart in the row. Three good plants are sufficient to 
form a bunch to be covered by a pot, planted in a triangular 
form about eight inches from each other. Planting should be 
done about the last week in March. 
If seeds be sown instead of plants, little circular drills should 
be drawn about eight or nine inches in diameter, eight or ten 
seeds sown in each and carefully covered up. Early attention 
should be paid to the seedlings as to thinning out and stirring 
the earth about them with the finger. The thinning out should 
not all be done at one time; ,but finally three or four plants 
should be left to form the future bunch, and then nothing more 
will be required but attention to earth-stirring and keeping them 
free from weeds until the end of the growing season. 
Winter treatment. —The growing season being over towards 
the end of October, all the leaves of the plants .will be then on 
the wane ; and should then be carefully removed from the crowns 
with the finger and thumb and cleared away, choosing a dry clay 
for the purpose, when a little top dressing of leaf mould or cinder 
ashes should be placed over every crown. Then, in order to 
have Kale by Christmas, one bed may be covered over with 
proper Sea-kale pots about the first or second week in November ; 
then to be covered up with fallen leaves or dung, a6 already 
stated. If dung is so employed it should be turned over two or 
three times to ferment and sweeten previously to its being placed 
over the pots. A fine dry day should be chosen for this operation. 
When the bed is covered up with the fermenting material a stake 
should be run through the centre of it down to the ground in 
order to tell the amount of the heat; and if moderately warm 
after a few days’ standing all will be well. If hot, or inclined to 
burn, the fermenting material must be opened a little to reduce 
the heat. 
The same plot of ground on which we force our Kale has been 
occupied with this vegetable during the whole of twenty-five 
years, and the Kale is at this time in excellent vigour. The day 
I write this (Jan. 23rd), I lifted a pot, under which was as fine 
a lot of Kale as I ever wish to see; its delicate white stocky 
shoots being about eight inches high, and enough for two good 
dishes. 
Multitudes of slugs are apt to harbour among the leaves ; and 
where the Kale is cut and the pot taken away these pests are 
very destructive to the crowns by eating out their hearts to a 
great depth, and causing many good crowns to become weak 
and dwindling. To prevent this I always put over the crown, as 
soon as the Kale is cut, as much cinder ashes as will fairly cover 
the whole crown. This is an excellent protection to the plants. 
As said before, the same plot has been occupied with Sea-kale 
for the last quarter of a century; but about eleven or twelve 
years ago, during the month of November, and, I think, part of 
October and beginning of December, a vast quantity of rain fell— 
so much so, that our garden was almost covered with water for a 
considerable length of time. Of course, our first batch of Sea- 
kale was covered up at the time; but, covered and uncovered, 
nearly all rotted. We that year had to be careful and make 
much of our other plot, which happened to be out of the water. 
Well, we trenched out all the old roots, and the soil too, to the 
very bottom of it; and happening to have a heap of soil, which 
was composed of something of all sorts, but the greater part of 
street and road-scrapings, the whole of it v'as put upon this plot 
of ground, and thoroughly mixed up with the old garden soil. 
In the first w'eek in April this plot w r as lined out into beds, and 
sown in the mode already detailed. The following November we 
made our first covering as usual, and so on in succession a 3 
before said, and finer Kale I never cut; I took a first prize 
with it about the 10th of the following March. 
Whenever I find a blank in the row, or a crown becomes very 
weak, I take it away, and then fork up the spot deep and well, 
adding one or two spadefuls of leaf mould. This is well mixed 
up with the other soil, and then cuttings are taken from the 
larger crowns to fill up this blank. These cuttings, taken off the 
larger crowns, are in most cases without any root at all, are 
planted, and the pot is put over them just the same as it would 
be over the best and strongest crowns. 
As soon as the pots are all fitted to the bunches, then every 
crown is well dusted over with quicklime and covered witli the 
pot that instant; and should there be a slug there this is death to 
it. Then the leaves are also put over the pots as speedily as 
possible, thus warming the soil round about now-planted cuttings, 
and setting them all at work together. The cuttings make roots 
readily, and many of them put up very fine heads ; but whether 
weak or strong, all are cut at the cutt ing time. 
Rhubarb may be grown near the Sea-kale, and may be brought 
forward in the same manner ; but deeper pots, crates, or butter- 
tubs, are required for covering over the stools. The best kind I 
know is the Poyal Albert. This is excellent in quality and very 
early. The stalks are large and of a beautiful crimson colour.™ 
T. Weaver, Gardener to the Warden of Winchester College . 
