pFaaC Isorc, l9eger^/, anS. T§)ijrlc/-, 265 



rean Cow Cabbage grows sixteen feet high. Possibly these gigantic 

 Cabbages may have given rise to the nursery tales of some of the 

 continental states, in which the young hero emulates the exploits of 

 the P2nglish Jack and his Bean-stalk, by means of a little Cabbage, 

 which grows larger and larger, and finally, becoming colossal, 



reaches the skies. In England, there is a nursery legend 



which relates how the three daughters of a widow were one day 

 sent into the kitchen garden to prote(ft the Cabbages from the 

 ravages of a grey horse which was continually stealing them. 

 Watching their opportunity, they caught him by the mane and 

 would not be shaken off; so the grey horse trotted away to a 

 neighbouring hill, dragging the three girls after him. Arrived at 

 the hill, he commanded it to open, and the widows' daughters found 



themselves in an enchanted palace. A tradition in the Havel 



country, North Germany, relates that one Christmas Eve a peasant 

 felt a great desire to eat Cabbage, and having none himself, he 

 slipped into a neighbour's garden to cut some. Just as he had 

 filled his basket, the Christ Child rode past on his white horse, and 

 said: "Because thou hast stolen on the holy night, thou shalt 

 immediately sit in the moon with thy basket of Cabbage." The 

 culprit was immediately wafted up to the moon, and there, as the 

 man in the moon, he is still undergoing his penalty for stealing 



Cabbages on Christmas Eve. To dream of cutting Cabbages 



denotes jealousy on the part of wife, husband, or lover, as the case 

 may be. To dream of anyone else cutting them portends an 

 attempt by some person to create jealousy in the loved one's mind. 

 To dream of eating Cabbage implies sickness to loved ones and loss 

 of money. Cabbages are plants of the Moon. 



CACTUS. — The Cacfti are for the most part natives of South 

 America, where their weird and grotesque columns or stems, devoid 

 of leaves, dot with green the arid plains of New Barcelona or the 

 dark hillsides of Mexico and California. They often attain the 

 height of fifty feet, and live to such an age as to have gained the 

 name of " imperishable statues," Standing for centuries, they 

 have been selected to mark national boundaries, as for instance, 

 between the English and French possessions in the Island of St. 

 Christopher, West Indies, and they are also employed as hedges to 

 lanes and roadways. In the arid plains of Mexico and Brazil, the 

 Cacfti serve as reservoirs of moisture, and not only the natives, by 

 probing the fleshy stems with their long forest knives, supply them- 

 selves with a cool and refreshing juice, but even the parched cattle 

 contrive to break through the skin with their hoofs, and then to 

 suck the liquid they contain. The splendid colours of the Cacftus 



flowers are in vivid contrast with the ugly and ungainly stems. 



There are sundry local legends and superstitions about these plants 

 of the desert. A certain one poisons ever}' white spot on a horse, but 

 not one of any other colour. Another, eaten by horses, makes them 

 lazy and imbecile. The number of known genera is eighteen, 



