This is a well-known medicinal herb, as easily grown as a bean or sunflower. It is principally used in eruptive diseases, to induce moisture of the skin and keep the eruption out. Sow in any good soil, in rows eighteen inches apart, and keep clean of weeds. When in full bloom, the flowers are gathered and dried.
SAGE.
This is a hardy garden-herb, easily grown. Its value for medicinal and culinary purposes is well known. It is propagated by seeds, or by dividing the roots. With suitable protection in winter, roots will live for a number of years, bearing seed after the first.
Varieties are, the red, the broad-leaved, the green, and the small-leaved green. The red is most used for culinary purposes, and the broad-leaved is most medicinal. All the varieties may be used for the same purposes. Any garden-soil, not decidedly wet, is suitable for sage. Raise new plants once in three or four years. Plants may be renovated, by certain culture and care, but it is better to grow new ones. Cut the leaves two or three times in the season, and dry quickly, and put away in paper bags; or, better, pulverize and cork up in glass bottles. This is the best method of preserving all herbs for domestic use.
SALSIFY, OR VEGETABLE OYSTER.
This is a hardy biennial vegetable, resembling a small parsnip, and as easily grown. When properly cooked, its flavor resembles the oyster, whence its name. Sow and cultivate as parsnips or carrots. It is suitable for use from November to May. It is better for being allowed to remain in the ground until wanted for use, though it may be well kept, in moist sand in the cellar. Care is necessary in saving seed as it shells and blows away like thistle seed, as soon as ripe. It must be sown quite thick, on account of its proneness not to vegetate. It should be more extensively cultivated.
SCRAPING LAND.
This is a process needed only on land that has not been under cultivation long enough to become level. All new land has many knolls of greater or less size. As soon as the roots are out sufficiently to allow it, the knolls should be plowed and leveled with a common scraper. Most farmers neglect it as injurious to the soil, and too expensive. But when we consider that rough land never gets well plowed, and that the gradual wearing away of the knolls will continue their unproductiveness for a number of years, it will be seen that the cheapest way is to plow and scrape the land level at once, and thoroughly manure the places from which the soil has been scraped.
SEEDS.
The best of everything should be saved for seed. Peas, beans, corn, tomatoes, &c., should not be gathered promiscuously, finally preserving the last that matures, for seed. Leave some of the finest and earliest stocks, and from them save seed, not from the first or the last that matures, but from the earliest that grows large and fair. Save tomato-seed from those that grow largest, but near the root. Gather all seeds as soon as mature, as remaining exposed to the weather is unfavorable to vegetation. Dry in a warm place in the shade, but not too near a stove or fire. Keep in paper bags, hung in a dry airy place, beyond the reach of mice.