CHAPTER XIV 



THE CABBAGE-CATERPILLAR 



THE cabbage of our modern kitchen- 

 gardens is a semi-artificial plant, the pro- 

 duce of our agricultural ingenuity quite as 

 much as of the niggardly gifts of nature. 

 Spontaneous vegetation supplied us with the 

 long-stalked, scanty-leaved, ill-smelling wild- 

 ing, as found, according to the botanists, on 

 the ocean cliffs. He had need of a rare in- 

 spiration who first showed faith in this rustic 

 clown and proposed to improve it in his gar- 

 den-patch. 



Progressing by infinitestimal degrees, cul- 

 ture wrought miracles. It began by persua- 

 ding the wild cabbage to discard its wretched 

 leaves, beaten by the sea-winds, and to replace 

 them by others, ample and fleshy and close- 

 fitting. The gentle cabbage submitted with- 

 out protest. It deprived itself of the joys of 

 light by arranging its leaves in a large, com- 

 pact head, white and tender. In our day, 

 among the successors of those first tiny hearts, 

 are some that, by virtue of their massive bulk, 



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