60 
AMERICAN KITCHEN GARDENER. 
successive sowings, or cutting down plants during summer, successive crops 
of blanched stalks may be had from June to December.’ 
u To save seed .— £ Permit some of the best stalks to shoot; they will pro¬ 
duce large umbels of seed in autumn.’— Abercrombie .”— Loudon. 
LEEK. 
Allium Porrum.—Porrecm , Fr.— Lauck , Ger. 
The leek is a hardy biennial, a native of Switzerland. The stem rises 
three feet, and is leafy at bottom; the leaves an inch wide. 
The narrow-leaved, or Flanders leek ; I The broad-leaved, or tall, London leek. 
The Scotch, or flag, or Musselburgh leek ; I 
Propagation. —‘‘From seed; and, for a bed four feet w T ide by eight in 
length, one ounce is requisite.” 
Soil and site. — u The soil should be light and rich, lying on a dry sub-soil. 
A rank soil does not suit it, so that, when manure is necessary, well reduced 
dung, mixed with road drift, is better than dung alone. The situation 
should be open. Let the ground be dug in the previous autumn, ready for 
sowing in the spring. For the principal crop allot beds four or five feet 
wide, and sow in drills, about sixteen inches apart. A small crop may be 
sown thinly with a main crop of onions, and when the latter are drawn off, 
the leeks will have room for full growth.’ 
Times of sowing. — u A small first crop may be sown as soon as the ground 
is dry enough, and the weather sufficiently mild in the spring. The princi¬ 
pal crop should be sown the last of April or the beginning of May.” 
Course of culture .— u When the plants are three or four inches high, weed 
them clean, and thin them where too much crowded. Water well in dry, 
hot weather. The leek is much improved in size by transplanting; and 
those designed for that purpose will be fit to remove when from six to ten 
inches high. For this purpose, take out a quantity, regularly, from the 
seed-bed, either in showery weather, or after watering the ground. Trim 
the long, weak tops of the leaves, and the roots and libers, and plant them 
by dibble, in rows, from nine to twelve inches asunder, by six or eight 
inches in the row, inserting them nearly dow T n to the leaves, or with the 
neck part mostly into the ground, to whiten it a proportionate length. 
Press the earth to the fibers with the dibbler, but leave the stem as loose as 
possible, and, as it were, standing in the center of a hollow cylinder. Give 
water if the weather be dry. Those remaining in tie seed-bed thin to six 
or eight inches distance. Keep the whole clear frorr weeds. In hoeing. 
