206 CABBAGES. [PART II. 



flower seed, from England, and had reached 

 me at Harrisburgh in Pennsylvania ; and partly 

 of plants, the seed of which had been given 

 me by Mr. JAMES PAUL, Senior, of Bustleton, 

 as I was on my return home. And this gave 

 me a pretty good opportunity of ascertaining 

 the fact as to the degenerating of cabbage seed. 

 Mr. Paul, who attended very minutely to all 

 such matters ; who took great delight in his 

 garden ; who was a reading as well as a prac 

 tical farmer, told me, when he gave me the 

 seed, that it would not produce loaved cab 

 bages so early as my own seed would ; for, 

 that, though he had always selected the earliest 

 heads for seed, the seed degenerated, and the 

 cabbages regularly came to perfection later and 

 later. He said, that he never should save cab 

 bage seed himself; but, that it was such 

 chance-work to buy of seedsmen, that he 

 thought it best to save some at any rate. In 

 this case, all the plants from the English seed 

 produced solid loaves by the 24th of June, 

 while, from the plants of the Pennsylvania 

 seed, we had not a single solid loaf till the 

 28th of July, and, from the chief part of them, 

 not till mid-August. 



169. This is a great matter. Not only have 

 you the food earlier, and so much earlier, from 

 the genuine seed, but your ground is occupied 



