| OCR Text |
Show CULTIVATING DANDELIONS. Most persons have looked upon the dandelion as a weed to be got rid of, and rather better than most weeds, as when cut up by the root in Spring it makes an acceptable accompaniment to the salt meat. The readers of the American Agriculturist are [unreadable] advised the cultivation of the dandelion-not indeed by sowing the common weed, but an improved kind. When one introduces a new vegetable into cultivation, he is a public benefactor, so when one induces another to cultivate a vegetable new to him though old to cultivation, he is a private benefactor, by enlarging his knowledge of the good things of the world and ?? him to try even but one of them ?? ?? and enjoyment of life is ?? The fact that the dandelion is a weed is no argument against its cultivation, parsnip and carrot are vastly worse weeds yet we go on cultivating them. If one is fond of the dandelion at all, he should cultivate it, for two reasons, he can cut a bushel in less time than he can hunt up a quart in the fields, and the cultivated is as much superior to the wild as a Savoy is to a common drum head cabbage. In the course of improving the dandelion, three useful varieties were established, the large leaved, the thick leaved and the curl leaved, which have been in cultivation for several years, and this year the French journals announce still another, the "very double" (a coeur plein). The French use the dandelion almost solely as a salad, it is blanched by covering the leaves, usually with earth; in a few days they lose their green color and nearly all of their bitterness, and come out white, crisp and tender. |
