CRESS, WATER. 47 
but in water, it will not bear to be long covered with it. Planting is al¬ 
ways surer than sowing, and is therefore preferred. The epoch for this is 
either March or August. The distance between the plants should not be less 
than ten or fifteen inches. Moving the earth about their roots with the hoe, 
from time to time, is useful; but for the rest, (having once taken root,) no 
further care is necessary. A cress plantation is in full bearing the second 
year, and lasts a long time. When it begins to fail, it may be renewed by 
taking off a foot of the surface soil of the old beds and replacing it with good 
and fresh earth. In winter, the beds are covered more deeply with water, 
which protects the plant against the frost.” 
The same writer informs us how they manage their cress plantations near 
Paris. “ Having there,” he says, u no running water, they cultivate it in the 
neighborhood of wells, and water it every day. The cress vegetates prompt¬ 
ly, but becomes acrid in taste. They accordingly prefer sowing to planting, 
because if cut when only six inches high, and treated in all respects as an 
annual, it has least of this pungency.”— Armstrong's Treatise. 
Loudon says, Ci Some market gardeners, who can command a small stream 
of water, grow the^water-cress in beds sunk about a foot in a retentive soil, 
with a very gentle slope from one end to the other. Along the bottom ol 
this bed, which may be of any convenient breadth and length, chalk or 
gravel is deposited, and plants are inserted about six inches’ distance every 
way. Then, according to the slope and length of the bed, dams are made 
six inches high across it, at intervals ; so that, when these dams are full, the 
water may rise not less than three inches on all the plants included in each. 
The w r ater being turned on w r ill circulate from dam to dam; and the plants, 
if not allowed to run to flower, will afford abundance of young tops in all but 
the winter months. A stream of water, no larger than what will fill a pipe 
of one inch bore, will, if not absorbed by the soil, suffice to irrigate in this 
way an eighth of an acre. As some of the plants are apt to rot off in win¬ 
ter, the plantation should be laid dry two or three times a year, and all 
weeds and decayed parts removed, and vacancies filled up. Cress grown in 
this way, however, is far inferior to that grown in a living stream flowing 
over gravel or chalk.” 
Use .— u Water-cresses are universally used and eaten as an early and 
wholesome spring salad. Being an excellent anti-scorbutic and stomachic, 
they are nearly allied to scurvy grass, but do not possess so great a degree of 
acrimony. They are also supposed to purify the blood and htfmors, and to 
open visceral obstructions.”— Dom. Encyc. 
