240 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



young crops of cabbage of different kinds which 

 had been sown at short intervals, during Fe- 

 bruary and the beginning of March, that they 

 might be ready for use in succession ; and I find 

 that, although she is such a great botanist, she 

 does not at all despise the knowledge of garden 

 vegetables and of their cultivation. Indeed, she 

 says, that it is being but half a botanist, not to 

 have a general knowledge of all the useful vege- 

 tables, with the principles of their cultivation, 

 and their times and seasons. 



Among the few plots of cabbage now in leaf, 

 we found some rows of the large-ribbed species, 

 in which there appeared to be several varieties ; 

 and in trying to make out the differences, I 

 pereived an odd tail or appendage to some of 

 the leaves. When I made Miss P. take notice 

 of it, she was surprised, and said she had 

 never before observed a similar circumstance 

 in the growth of any cabbages. This curious 

 appendage, which grows from the back of the 

 principal rib, in its substance is like the foot- 

 stalk of the leaves ; and at the end it dilates 

 into a sort of hollow cup like a funnel, with 

 something of the appearance of the nepenthes, 

 or pitcher plant. 



llth. I asked my uncle, after dinner what 

 were those older causes, which he told us had 



