290 THE WONDERS OF INSTINCT 



stalks, its branches and worked the lot into a fleshy con- 

 glomeration. This is the caulifloAver, the broccoli. 



Differently entreated, the plant, economizing in the 

 center of its shoot, set a whole family of close-wrapped 

 cabbages ladder-^ise on a tall stem. A multitude of 

 dwarf leaf-buds took the place of the colossal head. 

 This is the Brussels sprout. 



Next comes the turn of the stump, an unprofitable, 

 almost wooden, thing, which seemed never to have any 

 other purpose than to act as a support for the plant. 

 But the tricks of gardeners are capable of everything, 

 so much so that the stalk yields to the grower's sugges- 

 tions and becomes fleshy and swells into an ellipse similar 

 to the turnip, of which it possesses all the merits of 

 corpulence, flavor and delicacy ; only the strange product 

 serves as a base for a few sparse leaves, the last protests 

 of a real stem that refuses to lose its attributes entirely. 

 This is the cole-rape. 



If the stem allows itself to be allured, why not the 

 root? It does, in fact, yield to the blandishments of 

 agriculture; it dilates its pivot into a flat turnip, which 

 half emerges from the ground. This is the rutabaga, or 

 swede, the turnip-cabbage of our northern districts. 



Incomparably docile under our nursing, the cabbage 

 has given its all for our nourishment and that of our 

 cattle: its leaves, its flowers, its buds, its stalk, its root; 

 all that it now wants is to combine the ornamental with 

 the useful, to smarten itself, to adorn our flowerbeds and 

 cut a good figure on a drawing-room table. It has done 



