MONTHLY CALENDAR. 817 



877. Among the Greeks it was considered astringent as well as aperient : 

 it prevented drunkenness ; it was beneficial to the stomach, and bracing to 

 the sinews ; in fact, there were few of the ills which flesh is heir to, for 

 which, in ancient estimation, the cabbage, in some form or other, was not a 

 remedy. 



878. Gerarde is the oldest English author who has written on this useful 

 vegetable : he mentions the white-cabbage cole, red-cabbage cole, the curled 

 garden cole ; the Savoie cole is, he says, numbei-ed among the headed colo- 

 worts or cabbages. He notices the curled Savoy, but says, "the swollen 

 colewort of all others is the strangest, and which I received from a worshipful 

 merchant of London, Master Nicholas Lete, who brought the seed out of 

 France, who is greatly in love with rare and fair flowers, and plants, for 

 which he doth carefully send into Syria, having a servant there, at Alepo, 

 and in many other countries ; for the which myself and likewise the whole 

 lande are much bound unto him." The same author says, "Rape cole is 

 another variety ; they were called in Latin, caulo-rajjumtxnd rapo-caulis, par- 

 ticipating of two plants — the coleworts and turnips ; from whence they derive 

 their name. They grow in Italy, Spain, and some places in Germany. They 

 must," he says, "be carefully set and sown, as musk-melons and cucum- 

 bers." This variety has now become one of our hardiest field plants. 



879. The principal cabbages now cultivated in this country ai*e, the early 

 Battersea, early dwarf, early York, imperial Penton, sugarloaf, drumhead, 

 red Dutch, purple turnip, Savoy, green Savoy, and yellow Savoy; and the 

 numberless varieties which have sprung from them. 



880. Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea Botrytis). — This plant was first called 

 cole florie, and colieflorie, and is said to be derived from ccndis, a stalk, and 

 fero, to bear. Pierre Pompes says, cauliflower "comes to us in Pai-is by way 

 of Marseilles, from the isle of Cyprus, which is the only place I know of 

 where it seeds." From this account it would appear that cauliflowers were 

 not much cultivated in France in 1694, when his work was published. 



881. Broccoli (B. 0. Botrytis cymosa). — This plant is said to be an acci- 

 dental mixture of the common cabbage and the cauliflower ; it is also said 

 that it grows in no part of the world to such perfection as at Portsmouth. 

 Our varieties are the Cape, early purple, late purple, early white, late white, 

 and the Siberian. 



8S2. Seakale {Coramhe mantima). — Kale, or, according to our oldest 

 •writers, sea-colewort, is indigenous to our southern shores. Gerarde observes 

 in his Herbal, that "the sea-colewort groweth naturally upon the bayche 

 and brimmes of the sea, where there is no earth to be seen, but sand and 

 rolling pebble-stones. I found it growing between Whystable and the Isle of 

 Thanet, neere the brincke of the sea, and in many places neere to Colchester 

 and elsewhere by the seaside." It does not appear that the Romans had 

 attempted to raise this vegetable in their gardens in the time of Pliny, who 

 calls it Hahnyridia, and says it grows wild on the sea-coast. He observes, 

 provision is made of them to serve in long voyages at sea, for as soon as they 



