A useful, hardy, smallish sort, adapted to small gardens; requiring only eighteen or twenty inches' space each way. Excellent for use before it becomes fully cabbaged.
Yellow Curled Savoy. Thomp.
Large Late Yellow Savoy. White Savoy.
Dwarf, middle-sized, round; leaves pale-green at first, but quite yellow in winter; the heart is not so compact as some, but of tender quality, and by many preferred, as it is much sweeter than the other kinds. It is later and hardier than the Yellow Savoys, before described.
SEA-KALE.
Crambe maritima.
Sea-kale is a native of the southern shores of Great Britain, and is also abundant on the seacoasts of the south of Europe. There is but one species cultivated, and this is perennial and perfectly hardy. The leaves are large, thick, oval or roundish, sometimes lobed on the borders, smooth, and of a peculiar bluish-green color; the stalk, when the plant is in flower, is solid and branching, and measures about four feet in height; the flowers, which are produced in groups, or clusters, are white, and have an odor very similar to that of honey. The seed is enclosed in a yellowish-brown shell, or pod, which, externally and internally, resembles a pit, or cobble, of the common cherry. About six hundred seeds, or pods, are contained in an ounce; and they retain their germinative powers three years. "They are large and light, and, when sold in the market, are often old, or imperfectly formed; but their quality is easily ascertained by cutting them through the middle: if sound, they will be found plump and solid." They are usually sown without being broken.
Preparation of the Ground, and Sowing.—The ground should be trenched to the depth of from a foot to two feet, according to the depth of the soil, and well enriched throughout. The seeds may be sown in April, where the plants are to remain; or they may be sown at the same season in a nursery-bed, and transplanted the following spring. They should be set or planted out in rows three feet apart, and eighteen inches apart in the rows.
Culture.—"After the piece is set, let the plants be kept very clean. The earth should be occasionally stirred, when the rains have run the surface together; and, when the plants come up, let them have their own way the first season. As the plants will blossom the second season if let alone, and the bearing of seed has a tendency to weaken every thing, take off the flower-buds as soon as they appear, and not allow the plants to seed. When the leaves begin to decay in autumn, clear them all off, and dig a complete trench between the rows, and earth up the ridges: that is, all the soil you take out must be laid on the plants, so as to pile or bank up eight inches above the crowns of the roots, thus forming a flat-topped bank a foot across; widening a little downwards, so that the edges shall not break away. In doing this, the piece is formed into alternate furrows and ridges; the plants being under the centre of the ridges.