74 



HARDWICKEI'S SCI ENCE- GO S SIP. 



England. This writer states that Sea-kale was 

 first sold to the public at Exeter market at the price 

 of two shillings and sixpence per root. In the 

 same volume, page 255, it is stated that the Rev. 

 John Fremen, who was vicar of Sidbury, near Sid- 

 mouth, between 1707-13, was the first person that 

 sent Sea-kale to the London market ; but it appears 

 to have been little appreciated. About the middle 

 of the last century, Mr. Giles Templeman, of Dor- 

 chester, sent some roots to Covent Garden market ; 

 but the plant was then so little known, that the 

 labels having been defaced in the carriage to 

 London, the contents of the parcel were put aside 

 as being some sort of "poisonous root, or other." 



Dr. Lettsom, in his horticultural sketch of his 

 residence at Grove Hill, Camberwell, 1791, mentions 

 this esculent amongst others grown by him, and 

 expresses as a matter of surprise that a vegetable 

 so useful and productive, and easy of cultivation, 

 should be so rarely met with in the gardens about 

 London. 



Curtis, in his pamphlet on the culture of Sea- 

 kale, published 1822, states that Sir William Jones, 

 of Chelsea, says he saw bundles of this vegetable 

 exposed for sale in the market at Chichester in 

 1753. " I have learned from different persons," says 

 Curtis, " that attempts had been made at various 

 times to introduce Sea-kale into the London mar- 

 kets, but ineffectually ; a few years since I renewed 

 the attempt myself, and though it was not attended 

 with all the success I would wish, I flatter myself 

 it has been the means of making the plant so gene- 

 rally known, that in future the markets of the first 

 city of the world will be duly supplied with this 

 most desirable article." 



The Sea-kale is not much cultivated on the Con- 

 tinent. Yalmount de Bomare calls it Chou marin 

 sauvage d'Angleterre, and so condemned the plant 

 as only fit for the coarser tastes of the inhabitants 

 of colder climates ; but in the present day it is seen 

 in the markets of Paris and other French towns. 



As to its excellence as a food, persons differ, as 

 they do in all matters of taste ; some preferring it 

 even to asparagus, to which it is related in point of 

 flavour; others regarding it as little superior to 

 cabbage. In its sensible effects on the human body 

 it comes nearer to the Cabbage tribe than asparagus. 

 It is stated as a most desirable vegetable for 

 sedentary persons, or such as have weak stomachs, 

 being remarkably light and easy of digestion, and 

 abounding in alkali rather than acids. 



No. XVIII.-VIPER'S-GRASS (Scorzonera 

 hispanicd). 



This vegetable is indigenous to Spain ; it was 

 introduced into this country about 1576, some years 

 after the Skirret, and, like it, was formerly more 

 cultivated than it is at present. Its root has not, 



however, the peculiar sweetness of the latter, but it 

 is extremely delicate, and when' properly prepared 

 makes so pleasant an addition to the list of culinary 

 vegetables, that it appears to be unjustly excluded 

 from our gardens ; and, according to Beckmann, like 

 several other vegetables, has been banished by 

 fashion ; "for this tyrant, which rules with universal 

 sway, commands the taste, as well as the smell, to 

 consider as intolerable articles to which our ances- 

 tors had peculiar attachment." Scorzonera was first 

 known on account of its supposed medicinal pro- 

 perties, about the middle of the sixteenth century, 

 in Spain, where it was esteemed as an antidote to 

 the poison of a snake, called there scurzo. A Moor, 

 it is said, who had learnt in Africa that this plant 

 possessed so valuable a property, availed himself of 

 the knowledge in effecting many cures with the 

 juices of the leaves and roots upon peasants who had 

 been bitten by] these venomous reptiles while 

 mowing ; but he carefully concealed the plant, that 

 he (might retain to himself all the honour and the 

 profit attendant on the discovery. He was at last 

 observed to gather it among the mountains, to which 

 the name of Scorzonera was then given from the 

 name of the snake, the venom of which it was 

 believed to render innocuous. The knowledge was 

 quickly disseminated. Peter Cannizer transmitted 

 the plant, together with a drawing of it, to John 

 Oderich Melchior, physician to the Queen of 

 Bohemia, and he, in his turn, lost no time in sending 

 it to Matthioli, who had not any previous knowledge 

 of the plant (see " MatthioliJEpist. Medic," p. 210). 

 Soon after this Nicholas Monardes published a tract 

 in which the particular virtue of these roots was 

 panegyrized. It is probable that in Spain their 

 adaptation as an edible substance was likewise first 

 discovered ; and thence, about the beginning of the 

 17th century, it was introduced into France. The 

 author of "Le Jardinier Francois," published 1616, 

 who was a practical as well as theoretical gardener, 

 assigns to his own exertions its first cultivation in 

 the French gardens. (Beckmann.) 



Another plant belonging to the same natural order 

 (Compositse), and is now rarely seen in our gardens, 

 is the Salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius) . Dioscorides 

 describes this plant, and his description answers in 

 every respect except in the shortness of the stem. 

 He says it is an edible herb, with leaves like garlic, 

 a short stem, a long sweet root, with a large flower- 

 cup on the top of the stalk. It is stated that Dr. 

 Sibthorp did not meet with this plant in Greece, 

 and it finds a place in his " Prod. Fl. Greeca," merely 

 as having been discovered by Abbate Sestini near 

 Constantinople ; but it might have been cultivated 

 in Greece as elsewhere. 



Evelyn, in his " Acetaria," .tells us that the common 

 Goat's-beard (Tragopogon pratensis) was grown as 

 a vegetable in his day, " but that the name had been 

 lately Italianized, and called Salsifix ; and the seed- 



