A few of the strongest plants are sometimes left, to pro duce their flowers and seeds the following year ; but ripe seed is to be procured only in very favourable seasons in this country. It is therefore generally imported from Hol land or France ; and it keeps for several years.
In France, the native prickly plant is sometimes culti vated, under the name of Cardoon of Tours, and is ac counted preferable to the common garden variety. So for midable are its spines, that great care is necessary in work ing about it, to avoid personal injury ; a strong leather dress, and thick gloves, are therefore worn. This prickly -iort has not yet been introduced into Britain.
Ram/zion.
370. The Rampion (Campanula Rapunculus, L.; Pen tandria Monogynia ; Campanulace‘e, .Jus.) is a biennial plant ; a native of England, but rare ; figured in English Botany, t. 283. The lower leaves are oval-lanceolate, and waved. The whole plant abounds with a milky juice. The part used is the root, which is of the size and shape of a small radish, but of a white colour, and mild taste, or with only a slight degree of pungency and bitterness. It is eaten either raw, in fresh salads, or more commonly boiled like asparagus. It is much more esteemed in France, under the name of raiponce, than in this country. There the roots and the young leaves are used together in the spring months. So little is it cultivated here, that Nicol does not speak of it in his " Gardener's Kalendar." The seed is sown in the end of May, in a quarter some what shady. If sown earlier, or in a warm sunny situation, the flower-stems would be apt to spring up the first year, when, as repeatedly mentioned in similar cases, the roots would become hard and unfit for use. The seed is very minute, insomuch that, to enable the gardener to sow it equally and thin enough, it should be mixed with sawings of timber. A thimble-full of the seed is sufficient to sow a krge bed. When the plants are about an inch high, they are hoed, and thinned out to the distance of three or four inches from each other. They are afterwards to be kept free of weeds, and the surface is occasionally stirred. The roots are ready for use at the approach of winter, and conti nue good till the spring growth commences. If a few plants be left, a flower-stalk rises, and the pale purple bell flowers appear in the end of July, followed by plenty of seed in the autumn.
Lettuce.
371. Lettuce (Lactuca sativa, L.; Syngenesia Polyga mia zEqualis ; Chicorace Juss.; Laitue, F.; Gartensalat, G.) is an annual plant, toe original country of wnich is un known. Some authors indeed seem inclined to consider it as merely an accidental variety, sprung from some of the other species of Lactuca. It was cultivated in England in the middle of the 16th century, and probably much ear lier. The leaves are large, milky, frequently wrinkled,
usually pale green, but varying much in form and colour in the different varieties. The use of lettuce as a cooling and agreeable salad is well known ; it is also a useful in gredient in soups. It contains, like the other species of this genus, a quantity of milky juice of an opiate nature, from which of late years a medicine has been prepared by Dr Duncan, senior, of Edinburgh, under the title of lactuca num, and which he finds can be administered with effect in cases where opium is inadmissible.
372 Many varieties are cultivated ; but these are gene rally considered as belonging to one or other of two kinds, the Coss (also called Roman and ice) and the Cabbage let tuce ; the former with long upright leaves, the latter with the leaves round, rather flaccid, and growing squat upon the ground. The sorts at present most approved are, of the coss lettuces, the Egyptian green, and the white coss or Versailles ; of the cabbage lettuces, the imperial, and the grand admiral, or admirable. The large Roman and the Cilicia lettuce, brown and green, are the kinds chiefly used in soups, or for stewing.
By means of successive sowings, and by care during winter, fresh lettuce is now produced almost the whole year round. The plants are used either when young and open, or when at full growth and cabbage[. A small sowing is often made in January, the seedlings being trans planted in March. A considerable crop is sown in the end of February ; the main sowing is in March and April ; and sometimes a portion of lettuce seed is sprinkled in along with onions or carrots, the lettuces being drawn before they can hurt the other crop. Lettuce seed is sown at broad cast, and is merely raked into the ground. The plants bear transplanting very well, particularly in showery wea ther; and a part of each crop should be regularly trans planted, to conic in season immediately after those left in the seed-beds. They may be transplanted very young ; when they have four or six leaves, they are fittest for this purpose. They are placed from ten to fifteen inches apart, according to the size they are likely to attain. When it is wished to forward the cabbaging of coss lettuce, the leaves are sometimes tied together, in the manner practised with endive. If the winter do not prove very severe, lettuces -will stand without much injury close by the foot of a south Avail, and be fit for use in January, February, and March. In some places they are protected by hoops and mats ; in others, by means of glass-frames ; and sometimes a few cabbage lettuces are kept on a slight hot-bed.