Soil and Cultivation.—The Oyster-plant succeeds best in a light, well-enriched, mellow soil; which, previous to sowing the seeds, should be stirred to the depth of twelve or fifteen inches. The seeds should be sown annually, in the same manner and at the same time as the seeds of the carrot and parsnip. Make the drills fourteen inches apart; cover the seeds an inch and a half in depth; and thin, while the plants are young, to four or five inches asunder.
Early sowings succeed best; as the seeds, which are generally more or less imperfect, vegetate much better when the earth is moist than when dry and parched, as it is liable to become when the season is more advanced. Cultivate in the usual manner during the summer; and, by the last of September or beginning of October, the roots will have attained their full growth, and be ready for use. The plants will sustain no injury during the winter, though left entirely unprotected in the open ground; and the table may be supplied directly from the garden, whenever the frost will admit of their removal. A portion of the crop should, however, be taken up in autumn, and stored in the cellar, like other roots; or, which is perhaps preferable, packed in earth or sand. Roots remaining in the ground may be drawn for use till April, or until the plants have begun to send up their stalks for flowering.
Seeds,—production and quantity.—For the production of seeds, allow a few plants to remain during the winter in the open ground where they were sown. They will blossom in June and July. When fully developed, the stem is about three feet in height, cylindrical, and branching. The flowers are large, of a very rich violet-purple, and expand only by day and in comparatively sunny weather. As the flowers are put forth in gradual succession, so the heads of seeds are ripened at intervals, and should be cut as they assume a brownish color.
The seeds are brownish,—lighter or darker as they are less or more perfectly matured,—long and slender, furrowed and rough on the sides, tapering to a long, smooth point at the top, often somewhat bent or curved, and measure about five-eighths of an inch in length. They will keep four years.
An ounce contains three thousand two hundred seeds, and will sow a row eighty feet in length. Some cultivators put this amount of seed into a drill of sixty feet; but if the seed is of average quality, and the season ordinarily favorable, one ounce of seed will produce an abundance of plants for eighty or a hundred feet.
Use.—The roots are prepared in various forms; but, when simply boiled in the manner of beets and carrots, the flavor is sweet and delicate. The young flower-stalks, if cut in the spring of the second year and dressed like asparagus, resemble it in taste, and make an excellent dish.
The roots are sometimes thinly sliced, and, with the addition of vinegar, salt, and pepper, served as a salad. They are also recommended as being remedial or alleviating in cases of consumptive tendency.
There is but one species or variety now cultivated.