264 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



bage is more disposed to fermentation and putrefac- 

 tion than almost any other vegetable. When cul- 

 tivated as food for stock, it is of course a mat- 

 ter of importance with agriculturists to produce 

 the greatest weight in a given space. The average 

 crop, as stated by Mr Arthur Young, is thirty-six 

 tons per acre, when the plants are grown on a dry 

 soil, which is very similar to that quoted from other 

 and more modern writers ; but on a sandy soil only 

 eighteen tons have been obtained. Some cabbages 

 are occasionally produced of an astonishing size and 

 weight. A cabbage-seed accidentally sown among 

 onions came up in the onion bed, and without any 

 care being taken of it grew to very large dimensions, 

 and weighed, when taken up, twenty-five pounds. 

 A cabbage was also produced in Devonshire, two or 

 three years back, which, when growing, occupied a 

 space of fifteen feet of ground, measured five feet in 

 circumference, and weighed sixty pounds.* 



A variety of brassica under the name of cow-cab- 

 bage (Brassica olerncea, var. arborescem} has been 

 recently introduced into this country from La Vendee 

 by the Comte de Puysage. The proximity of this 

 department to the ancient province of Anjou, and the 

 description of the plant, leave no doubt of its identity 

 with the Anjou cabbage, a very large variety describ- 

 ed by Mill.f In 1827 thirty-six seedsj were divided 

 among six agriculturists, for the purpose of raising 

 this useful vegetable in England. The perfect success 

 resulting from some of these seeds, which have pro- 

 duced plants of a luxuriant growth, is already known ; 

 and horticulture is now so much more disseminated 

 and understood in this country, that there is every 

 reason to hope that the cow-cabbage will at length 



* Card. Mag. vol. iii, p. 351. 

 t Mill's Husbandry, vol. iii. 

 $ Card . Mag. vols. iii, and v. 



