Vegetable Monotony The flower catalogues descend on us ; and
some of them are really marvellous examples of book production. The illustrations make the mouth water. If only we could grow such perfect pods, such a curtain of bloom ! Most of us; I think, grow too small a variety of vegetables, and too big a variety of annual flowers. When one goes to a big show and sees 360 varieties of vegetable exhibited on one stand one must wonder at the poverty of one's own " potager." Of course, many of the show. vegetables be- long to " the Fancy." They are rather for show than use ; but when we have boiled down the 360 to a score our vegetable garden is still a Poverty Bottom. It has no celeriac, or custard-marrow or salsify or egg-plant or even seakale or pea-in-the-pod, or variety of haricot or bleached chicory or land cress or asparagus-kale or pumpkin. There is much amusement, to say no more, in the less usual vegetable salad plants, which of course (including the sharp and whole- some bleached dandelion) are legion. Incidentally, much the best way for the ordinary householder to grow cress is in wide flat boxes which the gardener can leave by the kitchen door, and the cook can take it as she requires.
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