Leek.—The leek is little grown in this country except by persons of foreign extraction. The plant is one of the onion family, and is used mostly as flavoring for soups. Well-grown leeks have a very agreeable and not very strong onion flavor.
Leek is of the easiest culture, and is usually grown as a second crop, to follow beets, early peas, and other early stuff. The seed should be sown in a seed-bed in April or early May and the seedlings planted out in the garden in July, in rows 2 feet apart, the plants being 6 inches apart in the rows. The plants should be set deep if the neck or lower part of the leaves is to be used in a blanched condition. The soil may be drawn towards the plants in hoeing, to further the blanching. Being very hardy, the plants may be dug in late fall, and stored the same as celery, in trenches or in a cool root-cellar. One ounce of seed to 100 feet of drill.
Lettuce is the most extensively grown salad vegetable. It is now in demand, and is procurable, every month in the year. The winter and early spring crops are grown in forcing-houses and coldframes, but a supply from the garden may be had from April to November, by the use of a cheap frame in which to grow the first and last crops, relying on a succession of sowings for the intermediate supply.
Seed for the first crop may be sown in a coldframe in March, growing the crop thick and having many plants which are small and tender; or, by thinning out to the distance of 3 inches and allowing the plants to make a larger growth, the plants pulled up may be set in the open ground for the next crop.
Sowings should be made in the garden from April to October, at short intervals. A moist location should be chosen for the July and August sowings. The early and late sowings should be of some loose-growing variety, as they are in edible condition sooner than the cabbage or heading varieties.
The cabbage varieties are far superior to the loose-growing kinds for salads. To be grown to perfection, they should have very rich soil, frequent cultivation, and an occasional stimulant, such as liquid manure or nitrate of soda.
The cos lettuce is an upright-growing type much esteemed in Europe, but less grown here. The leaves of the full-grown plants are tied together, thus blanching the center, making it a desirable salad or garnishing variety. It thrives best in summer.
One ounce of seed will grow 3000 plants or sow 100 feet of drill. In the garden, plants may stand 6 inches apart in the rows, and the rows may be as close together as the system of tillage will allow.
Mushroom.—Sooner or later, the novice wants to grow mushrooms. While it is easy to describe the conditions under which they may be grown, it does not follow that a crop may be predicted with any certainty.
Latterly, careful studies have been made of the growing of mushrooms from spores and of the principles involved in the making of spawn, with the hope of reducing the whole subject of mushroom growing to a rational basis. A good idea of this work may be had by reading Duggar’s contribution on the subject in Bulletin 85 of the Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture. In this place, however, we may confine ourselves to the customary horticultural practice.