BRASSICA. 259 



where he got much by rapine, especially from a lady 

 who intrusted her jewels to his honour ; whence the 

 jest on him, that he got more by Cales than by cale 

 and cabbage. There is said to be a cabbage at his 

 feet sculptured on his monument at Wimborne St 

 Giles, in Dorsetshire.* Although Sir Anthony Ash- 

 ley introduced the cabbage, it does not appear to have 

 become generally cultivated, for we continued to im- 

 port the vegetable for many years. Ben Jonson, who 

 wrote more than half a century afterwards, says ' He 

 hath newSj from the Low Countries, in cabbages.' 



It is recorded that cabbages were first introduced 

 into the north of Scotland by the soldiers of Cromwell. "f 

 A country embroiled in internal hostilities might be 

 supposed not to be in a very favourable state for the 

 more extended cultivation of plants, the passions of 

 the contending parties being too keenly roused to pay 

 attention to improvements in those arts the progress 

 of which more peculiarly belongs to a period of peace. 

 But in the present case the fact is opposed to this 

 conclusion ; we learn that ' Cromwell was a great 

 promoter of agriculture and the useful branches of 

 gardening, and that his soldiers introduced all the 

 best improvements wherever they went.' J 



The colonies of German fishermen from Cuxhaven 

 and the adjacent places, which peopled the coasts of 

 the central parts of the east of Scotland, are, how- 

 ever, supposed by some writers to have brought with 

 them their national love of brassica, and to have in- 

 troduced some species of those plants at a period much 

 anterior to that of the Commonwealth, to this part of 

 Scotland, which is more peculiarly ' the land of kale.' 

 There the cabbage and the open colewort are in equal 

 favour, giving the name of kale to a soup of which 

 they form the principal ingredients, the outside leaves 



* Cough's British Topography, vol. i, p. 133. 

 t Edin. Encyc. , Art. Horticulture. Loud. Encyc. Card., p. 87. 



