Green Mountain Sorrel.
This is an improved variety of the Mountain Sorrel, and preferable to any other, from the greater size and abundance of its leaves, which possess much acidity. It is also late in running to flower.
The leaves are large, numerous, ovate-sagittate, from ten to eleven inches long, and nearly five inches in width; the radical leaves are slightly blistered, and of a dark, shining green color. It can only be propagated by dividing the roots.
The plants require a space of eighteen inches between the rows, and a foot from plant to plant in the rows.
SPINACH.
Spinacia oleracea.
Spinach is a hardy annual, of Asiatic origin. When in flower, the plant is from two to three feet in height; the stem is erect, furrowed, hollow, and branching; the leaves are smooth, succulent, and oval-oblong or halberd-shaped,—the form varying in the different varieties. The fertile and barren flowers are produced on separate plants,—the former in groups, close to the stalk at every joint; the latter in long, terminal bunches, or clusters. The seeds vary in a remarkable degree in their form and general appearance; those of some of the kinds being round and smooth, while others are angular and prickly: they retain their vitality five years. An ounce contains nearly twenty-four hundred of the prickly seeds, and about twenty-seven hundred of the round or smooth.
Soil and Cultivation.—Spinach is best developed, and most tender and succulent, when grown in rich soil. For the winter sorts, the soil can hardly be made too rich.
It is always raised from seeds, which are sown in drills twelve or fourteen inches apart, and three-fourths of an inch in depth. The seeds are sometimes sown broadcast; but the drill method is preferable, not only because the crop can be cultivated with greater facility, but the produce is more conveniently gathered. For a succession, a few seeds of the summer varieties may be sown, at intervals of a fortnight, from April till August.