Salads are rather a difficulty during the early spring in English gardens. In seasonless London everything is always to be bought. I wonder why Mache (Corn Salad, or Lamb's Lettuce), so much grown in France, is so little cultivated here? People fairly well up in gardening come back from France in the winter, thinking they have discovered something new. Mache is a little difficult to grow in very light soils, and the safest plan is to make several sowings in July and August. We find it most useful, but, without constant reminding, no English gardener thinks of it at all, though it is in all the seed catalogues. As it is an annual, without sowing you naturally don't get it; and if sown too late, it is bound to fail. In very dry weather we have to water it at first.

If Beetroot is carelessly dug up and the roots broken, they bleed, which causes them to come to the table pale and tasteless. This is the fault of the gardener, not of the cook. Some English cooks boil them in vinegar; this hardens them, and makes them unwholesome. They are much better slowly baked in an oven, and not boiled at all. The poor Beetroot is often considered unwholesome, but if it is served with a little of the water it is boiled in, or if baked with a little warm water poured over it, a squeeze of lemon instead of vinegar, and a little oil added, I think the accusation is unjust. Beetroot served hot and cut in slices, with a white Bechamel sauce (see 'Dainty Dishes'), makes a very good winter vegetable. The Old English dish of Beetroot sliced and laid round a soup-plate with pulled Celery, mixed with a Mayonnaise sauce, built up in the middle, is excellent with all roast meats. At all the best Italian grocers' in London they sell a dried Green Pea from Italy, which makes a pretty puree both as a vegetable and as a soup in winter, especially if coloured with a very little fresh Spinach, not the colouring sold by grocers. The Peas must be soaked all night, then well boiled, rubbed smooth through a sieve, and a little cream and butter added. A nicer winter vegetable cannot be. It is really made exactly like the old pease-pudding served with pork, only not nearly so dry.

Imantophilums are one of the most effective and beautiful of our greenhouse plants at this time of the year, and last very well in water. We kept ours out of doors in an open pit all through last summer. As they threw up several flower-spikes, which we picked off, we feared that they might not do so well this spring; instead of which, I think they have never done better or flowered more freely. A little liquid manure helps them when in flower. Though a Cape plant, the leaves do not die down; and so it must be kept growing, or the foliage is injured.