CHAP. 39.—ENDIVE.
Endive, though it cannot exactly be said to be of the same genus as the lettuce, still cannot be pronounced to belong to any other.1113 It is a plant better able to endure the rigours of the winter than the lettuce,1114 and possessed of a more acrid taste, though the flavour of the stalk1115 is equally agreeable. Endive is sown at the beginning of spring, and transplanted at the end of that season. There is also a kind of spreading1116 endive, known in Egypt as “cichorium,”1117 of which we shall have occasion1118 to speak elsewhere more at length.
A method has been discovered of preserving all the thyrsi or leaves of the lettuce in pots, the object being to have them fresh when wanted for boiling. Lettuces may be sown all the year1119 through in a good soil, well-watered and carefully manured;1120 two months being allowed to intervene between sowing and transplanting, and two more between transplanting and gathering them when ripe. The rule is, however, to sow them just after the winter solstice, and to transplant when the west winds begin to prevail, or else to sow at this latter period, and to plant out at the vernal equinox. The white lettuce is the best adapted for standing the rigours of the winter.
All the garden plants are fond of moisture; lettuces thrive, more particularly, when well manured, and endive even more so. Indeed, it is found an excellent plan to plant them out with the roots covered up in manure, and to keep up the supply, the earth being cleared away for that purpose. Some, again, have another method of increasing their size; they cut them1121 down when they have reached half a foot in height, and cover them with fresh swine’s dung. It is the general opinion that those lettuces only will admit of being blanched which are produced from white seed; and even then, as soon as they begin to grow, sand from the sea-shore should be spread over them, care being taken to tie the leaves as soon as ever they begin to come to any size.