CABBAGES AND TURNIPS 187 



hint that they were known to the ancient nations of 

 the East, and De Candolle, who made laborious 

 researches into the subject, believes that the cultivated 

 cabbage is of European origin. 



Turnips are practically cabbages in which the 

 lower part of the stem, beneath the seed-leaves, has 

 become enlarged and fleshy under cultivation. 

 Botanists think that the wild turnip and cabbage, 

 though extremely similar in form and mode of life, 

 are capable of separation, but this is a question for 

 specialists and of little practical moment. 



Cabbages and turnips yield striking examples of 

 conspicuous changes due to long-continued cultiva- 

 tion and selection. They must have been factors of 

 appreciable weight in the early civilisation of Western 

 Europe. We can imagine some old European 

 savage, wandering dinnerless along the seashore, until 

 at length he was pressed by hunger to experiment 

 upon unfamiliar plants. That savages do thus gain 

 knowledge at the risk of their own lives we may infer 

 from the well-known fact that they are well ac- 

 quainted with the properties of the common plants of 

 their own country, and can point out which are 

 poisonous, which useless, which good for food. Our 

 savage sees the tall, weedy sea-cabbage, and finding 

 nothing more tempting, tries its flavour. There is a 

 slight pungency of taste, which raises misgivings, but 

 no ill-effects follow. Next day the sea-cabbage is 

 again resorted to, and in time becomes a regular 

 article of food. Presently some ingenious fellow, the 

 Watt of his age, saves himself the trouble of a daily 

 journey to the shore by transplanting a few cabbages 



