Nov. 1st, 1884. 
137 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
But the small, black, rough, three-sided seed, called, 
from its resemblance to Beech-mast, “ Beech-wheat,” 
after the German “ Buch-weizen,” is not only 
nourishing food for pheasants, but for men. Do 
not Germans and Itussians make delicious cakes 
and porridge therewith, and did not a certain Koyal 
Russian, who worked for a time as a ship's carpenter 
in one of our English dockyards, delight to sup off 
a dish of boiled Buch-weizen mixed with butter and 
such savoury condiments as his Imperial Majesty 
ordained to tickle the royal palate ? 
“ Ble Sarrasin,” as our French neighbours call it. 
owes its name to a general belief that the seed 
travelled westward with the Crusaders. In a light, 
dry soil, with fine weather, it is one of the quickest 
green crops grown, and it makes excellent food for 
cattle and sheep. It is, however, wholesome and 
nutritious as human food. The seeds contain about 
10 per cent, of glutten and GO per cent, of starch and 
or Cineraria maritima. A fine effect is also produced 
by having it in the foreground, or at the back of 
plants of Chrysanthemum fruteseens, in which, and 
many other positions, it is employed most success¬ 
fully at Gunnersbury Park, where Mr. Roberts makes 
such happy hits in his mixed combinations, and 
breaks through the formality of arrangement that 
prevails too much in most gardens. 
To grow the Lobelia cardinalis well out-of-doors, it 
requires good soil and plenty of water, as it is a 
moisture-loving subject, and delights in being quite 
wet at the roots. Although considered hardy, plants 
are not safe during the whiter except in favoured 
situations, and should therefore be either protected or 
taken up, the latter being the best and least trouble¬ 
some plan, as they can be laid in closely together, and 
kept from frost, in any cold frame. Like most 
herbaceous subjects, the Lobelia cardinalis admits of 
ready increase by division, the right time for propa- 
THE BUCKWHEAT. 
Among the multitude of charming wildings that 
garnish the roadsides and margins of fields and 
commons in England during the summer time, there 
is one that is worthy of more than a passing glance, 
not only on account of its homely beauty, but also of 
its value and importance as a food plant. Let us 
examine a specimen : it is an annual; it is sown, 
grows to perfection and dies within a year, in the 
course of a few months indeed. The plant is an 
upright grower, with broad-arrow shaped leaves and 
reddish, glossy stems, bearing at the end of each 
drooping, short, racemes of tiny pale pink flowers. 
Botanists may recognize in this short description 
Fagopyrum esculentum, or the common Buckwheat. 
The question will naturally arise, How came it here ? 
Wheat and Barley don’t grow even by chance by the 
roadside ; care and trouble must be taken to prepare 
abiantuh sancta catharinia AND a. VICTORIA. 
gating by that means being the spring, when the 
plants break up from the crown, as then they may 
be separated according to the number of shoots they 
show, and each can be potted singly or be dibbled out 
in a bed of light soil, to be lifted from there and 
grown on in a greenhouse, or planted out in the 
garden at pleasure. 
If for the former, the best way is to pot in small 
pots at the first start, and to shift on after, when the 
plants may either be plunged in some cool, half- 
shady spot outdoors, or be kept in any spare pit or 
frame till the flowers begin to appear. Besides being 
propagated in the manner referred to, Lobelia 
cardinalis may easily be raised from seed, which 
should be sown early, or the plants will not bloom 
the same year. During their early stages seedlings 
have green leaves, but after a time these give place 
to the dark ones, which make their appearance when 
the plants are advancing for bloom.— J. Sheppard. 
the soil for their reception, and protect them from 
birds and insect pests and weeds. From the seed-bed 
to the granary, vigilance must be exercised in order 
to secure a crop. But this wayside waif takes care of 
itself ! Whence came it ? 
Well, probably the seed from which this particular 
plant sprang was driven by rough usage of wind and 
weather to settle here, or perhaps a dainty field mouse 
dropped it out of its silken paws, or it was shaken 
from the flitting plumage of a pheasant from the 
squire’s preserves. Near the corner of the wood then, 
by the keeper’s cottage, a plot of ground was sown 
early last May with Buckwheat. Within a week the 
earth was covered with a carpet of green leaves, and 
by the end of July it was aglow with rosy colour. It 
is now November, and for months past the gorgeous 
long-tails have been feasting on the seeds as if totally 
unconscious of the existence of breechloaders or the 
various contingencies of bread sauce. 
sugar. The Americans make buckwheat cakes of the 
meal, which resembles oatmeal in appearance. A 
batter is made with the help of milk or buttermilk, 
and a tablespoonful of the mixture placed for a minute 
or two on the griddle-plate and tossed. The Americans 
eat the cake with molasses. 
Buckwheat is extensively grown in France and 
Germany, where it is employed as food in the form of 
a coarse kind of bread. All animals of the farm like 
it, and when given to cows it causes them to yield an 
abundance of excellent milk. Birds and bees, too, 
are very fond of it; bee-keepers frequently sow the 
seeds near their hives. Buckwheat is also sown in 
order to serve as a green manure. In this case it is 
cut when in full blossom, and ploughed in. All the 
nutriment the plant has gathered and stored up from 
the air, water, and earth is thus returned to the soil 
for the benefit of the succeeding crop.— L. E. 
