Part 11

Caraway is largely cultivated in Morocco, and is an important article of export from Russia, Prussia, and Holland. It has developed no clearly marked varieties; some specimens, however, seem to be more distinctly annual than others, though attempts to isolate these and thus secure a quick-maturing variety seem not to have been made.

Description.--The fleshy root, about 1/2 inch in diameter, is yellowish externally, whitish within, and has a slight carroty taste. From it a rosette of finely pinnated leaves is developed, and later the sparsely leaved, channeled, hollow, branching flower stem which rises from 18 to 30 inches and during early summer bears umbels of little white flowers followed by oblong, pointed, somewhat curved, light brown aromatic fruits--the caraway "seeds" of commerce. These retain their germinating power for about three years, require about 10,000 seeds to make an ounce and fifteen ounces to the quart.

Cultivation.--Frequently, if not usually, caraway is sown together with coriander in the same drills on heavy lands during May or early June. The coriander, being a quick-maturing plant, may be harvested before the caraway throws up a flowering stem. Thus two crops may be secured from the same land in the same time occupied by the caraway alone. Ordinary thinning to 6 or 8 inches between plants is done when the seedlings are established. Other requirements of the crop are all embraced in the practices of clean cultivation.

Harvest occurs in July of the year following the seeding. The plants are cut about 12 inches above ground with sickles, spread on sheets to dry for a few days, and later beaten with a light flail. After threshing, the seed must be spread thinly and turned daily until the last vestige of moisture has evaporated. From 400 to 800 pounds is the usual range of yield.

If seed be sown as soon as ripe, plants may be secured which mature earlier than the main crop. Thus six or eight weeks may be saved in the growing season, and by continuing such selection a quick-maturing strain may be secured with little effort. This would also obviate the trouble of keeping seed from one year to the next, for the strain would be practically a winter annual.

Uses.--Occasionally the leaves and young shoots are eaten either cooked or as an ingredient in salads. The roots, too, have been esteemed in some countries, even more highly than the parsnip, which, however, largely because of its size, has supplanted it for this purpose. But the seeds are the important part. They find popular use in bread, cheese, liquors, salads, sauces, soups, candy, and especially in seed cakes, cookies and comfits. The colorless or pale yellow essential oil distilled with water from the seeds, which contain between 5% and 7-1/2% of it, has the characteristic flavor and odor of the fruit. It is extensively employed in the manufacture of toilet articles, such as perfumery, and especially soaps.

=Catnip=, or =cat mint= (Nepeta cataria, Linn.), a perennial herb of the natural order Labiatae. The popular name is in allusion to the attraction the plant has for cats. They not only eat it, but rub themselves upon it purring with delight. The generic name is derived from the Etrurian city Neptic, in the neighborhood of which various species of the genus formerly became prominent.

Like several of its relatives catnip is a well-known weed. It has become naturalized in America, and is most frequently observed in dry, waste places, especially in the East, though it is also often found in gardens and around dwellings throughout the United States and Canada.

Description.--Its erect, square, branching stems, from 18 to 36 inches tall, bear notched oval or heartshaped leaves, whitish below, and during late summer terminal clusters of white flowers in small heads, far apart below, but crowded close above. The fruits are small, brown, ovoid, smooth and with three clearly defined angles. An ounce contains about 3,400 seeds. Viability lasts for five years.

Cultivation. Catnip will grow with the most ordinary attention on any fairly dry soil. The seed need only be sown in autumn or spring where the plants are to remain or in a nursery bed for subsequent transplanting. If to be kept in a garden bed they should stand 18 to 24 inches apart each way. Nothing is needful except to keep down weeds in order to have them succeed for several years on the same spot.

Uses.--The most important use of the plant is as a bee forage; for this purpose waste places are often planted to catnip. As a condiment the leaves were formerly in popular use, especially in the form of sauces; but milder flavors are now more highly esteemed. Still, the French use catnip to a considerable extent. Like many of its relatives, catnip was a popular medicinal remedy for many fleshly ills; now it is practically relegated to domestic medicine. Even in this it is a moribund remedy for infant flatulence, and is clung to only by unlettered nurses of a passing generation.

=Chervil= (Scandix Cerefolium, Linn.), a southern Europe annual, with stems about 18 inches tall and bearing few divided leaves composed of oval, much-cut leaflets. The small white flowers, borne in umbels, are followed by long, pointed, black seeds with a conspicuous furrow from end to end. These seeds, which retain their germinability about three years, but are rather difficult to keep, may be sown where the plants are to stay, at any season, about eight weeks before a crop is desired; cultivation is like that of parsley. During summer and in warm climates, cool, shady situations should be chosen, otherwise any situation and soil are suitable. The leaves, which are highly aromatic, are used, especially in France and England, for seasoning and for mixed salads. Chervil is rarely used alone, but is the chief ingredient in what the French call fines herbes, a mixture which finds its way into a host of culinary concoctions. The best variety is the Curled, which, though it has the same flavor as the plain, is a prettier garnish.

=Chives= (Allium Schoenoprasum, Linn.), a bulbous, onion-like perennial belonging to the Liliaceae. Naturally the plants form thick tufts of abundant, hollow, grasslike leaves from their little oval bulbs and mat of fibrous roots. The short flower stems bear terminal clusters of generally sterile flowers. Hence the plants are propagated by planting the individual bulbs or by division of clumps in early spring. Frequently chives are planted in flower borders as an edging, for which purpose the compact growth and dainty flowers particularly recommend them. They should not be allowed to grow in the same place more than three years.

Strictly speaking, chives do not belong with the herbs, but their leaves are so frequently used instead of onions for flavoring salads, stews and other dishes, and reference has been so often made to them in these pages, that a brief description has been included. For market the clumps are cut in squares and the whole plant sold. Treated in this way the greengrocers can keep them in good condition by watering until sold. For use the leaves are cut with shears close to the ground. If allowed to stand in the garden, cuttings may be made at intervals of two or three weeks all through the season.

=Clary= (Salvia sclarea, Linn.), a perennial herb of the natural order Labiatae. The popular name is a corruption of the specific. In the discussion on sage will be found the significance of the generic name. Syria is said to be the original home of clary, but Italy is also mentioned. The presumption is in favor of the former country, as it is the older, and the plant was probably carried westward from it by soldiers or merchants. In England clary was known prior to 1538, when Turner published his garden lore, but in America, except in foreigners' gardens, it is rarely seen. It has been listed in seedsmen's catalogs since 1806.

Description.--The large, very broad, oblong, obtuse, toothed, woolly haired, radical leaves are grayish green and somewhat rumpled like those of Savoy cabbage. From among them rise the 2-foot tall, square, branching, sparsely leaved stems, which during the second year bear small clusters of lilac or white showy flowers in long spikes. The smooth brown or marbled shining seeds retain their germinating power for three years.

Cultivation.--The plants thrive in any well-drained soil. Seed may be sown during March in drills 18 inches apart where the plants are to remain or in a seedbed for transplanting 18 inches asunder in May. Clean cultivation is needed throughout the summer until the plants have full possession of the ground. In August the leaves may be gathered, and if this harvest be judiciously done the production of foliage should continue until midsummer of the second year, when the plants will probably insist upon flowering. After this it is best to rely upon new plants for supplies of leaves, the old plants being pulled.

Uses.--In America, the leaves are little used in cookery, and even in Europe they seem to be less popular than formerly, sage having taken their place. Wine is sometimes made from the plant when in flower. As an ornamental, clary is worth a place in the hardy flower border.

=Coriander= (Coriandrum sativum, Linn.), "a plant of little beauty and of easiest culture," is a hardy annual herb of the natural order Umbelliferae. The popular name is derived from the generic, which comes from the ancient Greek Koris, a kind of bug, in allusion to the disagreeable odor of the foliage and other green parts. The specific name refers to its cultivation in gardens. Hence the scientific name declares it to be the cultivated buggy-smelling plant.

Coriander has been cultivated from such ancient times that its land of nativity is unknown, though it is said to be a native of southern Europe and of China. It has been used in cookery and of course, too, in medicine; for, according to ancient reasoning, anything with so pronounced and unpleasant an odor must necessarily possess powerful curative or preventive attributes! Its seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs of the 21st dynasty. Many centuries later Pliny wrote that the best quality of seed still came to Italy from Egypt. Prior to the Norman conquest in 1066, the plant was well known in Great Britain, probably having been taken there by the early Roman conquerors. Before 1670 it was introduced into Massachusetts. During this long period of cultivation there seems to be no record or even indication of varieties. In many temperate and tropical countries it has become a frequent weed in cultivated fields.

Description.--From a cluster of slightly divided radical leaves branching stems rise to heights of 2 to 2-1/2 feet. Toward their summits they bear much divided leaves, with linear segments and umbels of small whitish flowers, followed by pairs of united, hemispherical, brownish-yellow, deeply furrowed "seeds," about the size of a sweet pea seed. These retain their vitality for five or six years. The seeds do not have the unpleasant odor of the plant, but have a rather agreeable smell and a moderately warm, pungent taste.

Cultivation.--Coriander, a plant of the easiest culture, does best in a rather light, warm, friable soil. In Europe it is often sown with caraway, which, being a biennial and producing only a rosette of leaves at the surface of the ground the first year, is not injured when the annual coriander is cut. The seed is often sown in the autumn, though spring sowing is perhaps in more favor. The rows are made about 15 inches apart, the seeds dropped 1 inch asunder and 1/2 inch deep and the plantlets thinned to 6 or 8 inches. Since the plants run to seed quickly, they must be watched and cut early to prevent loss and consequent seeding of the ground. After curing in the shade the seed is threshed as already described (see page 28). On favorable land the yield may reach or even exceed 1,500 pounds to the acre.

Uses.--Some writers say the young leaves of the plant are used in salads and for seasoning soups, dressings, etc. If this is so, I can only remark that there is no accounting for tastes. I am inclined to think, however, that these writers are drawing upon their imagination or have been "stuffed" by people who take pleasure in supplying misinformation. The odor is such as to suggest the flavor of "buggy" raspberries we sometimes gather in the fence rows. Any person who relishes buggy berries may perhaps enjoy coriander salad or soup.

Only the seed is of commercial importance. It is used largely in making comfits and other kinds of confectionery, for adding to bread, and, especially in the East, as an ingredient in curry powder and other condiments. In medicine its chief use now is to disguise the taste of disagreeable drugs. Distillers use it for flavoring various kinds of liquors.

=Cumin= (Cuminum Cyminum, Linn.), a low-growing annual herb of the Nile valley, but cultivated in the Mediterranean region, Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, India, China, and Palestine from very early times, (See Isaiah xviii, 25-27 and Matthew xxiii, 23.) Pliny is said to have considered it the best appetizer of all condiments. During the middle ages it was in very common use. All the old herbals of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries figure and describe and extol it. In Europe it is extensively cultivated in Malta and Sicily, and will mature seed as far north as Norway; in America, today, the seed is cataloged by some seedsmen, but very little is grown.

Description.--The plant is very diminutive, rarely exceeding a height of 6 inches. Its stems, which branch freely from the base, bear mere linear leaves and small lilac flowers, in little umbels of 10 to 20 blossoms each. The six-ribbed, elongated "seeds" in appearance resemble caraway seeds, but are straighter, lighter and larger, and in formation are like the double seeds of coriander, convex on one side and concave on the other. They bear long hairs, which fold up when the seed is dry.

After the seed has been kept for two years it begins to lose its germinating power, but will sprout reasonably well when three years old. It is characterized by a peculiar, strong aromatic odor, and a hot taste.

Culture.--As soon as the ground has become warm the seed is sown in drills about 15 inches apart where the plants are to remain. Except for keeping down the weeds no further attention is necessary. The plants mature in about two months, when the stems are cut and dried in the shade. (See page 28.) The seeds are used in India as an ingredient in curry powder, in France for flavoring pickles, pastry and soups.