278 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



of consistency he continued to gnaw the hard end as 

 long as he lived. 



Asparagus contains a peculiar vegetable principle 

 to which the name of asparagin has been given, 

 and to which, in part in least, the plant owes its 

 qualities. 



SEA-KALE Crambe maritima. In the first volume 

 of the Transactions of the Horticultural Society, it is 

 stated by Maher, that sea-kale was sent from England 

 to the Continent by L'Obel and Turner, before the 

 middle of the sixteenth century. JVo professional 

 account of it, however, appeared for nearly a century 

 after that period ; the earliest notice being that taken 

 of it by Miller, in 1731 ; and it was not until the 

 year 1767 that it was first brought by Dr Lettsom 

 into fashionable repute as a garden vegetable. Since 

 that time it has gradually come into very general 

 culture in Britain, though, for the same reason as has 

 been assigned in the case of asparagus, it can never 

 become a cheap vegetable. 



The cultivation of this plant is but little attended 

 to, and apparently not very well understood on the 

 Continent. In the ' Manuel du Jardinier,' for 1807, 

 a French horticulturist described the chou marin 

 d" 1 Jlnglelerre ; but he was not aware of its proper 

 application as an esculent, since he used the broad 

 green leaves instead of the blanched shoots. This 

 of course proved no very tempting preparation, and 

 caused the plant to' be condemned as only fit for 

 the coarser tastes of the inhabitants of colder cli- 

 mates. 



Sea-kale is a hardy perennial, and when allowed 

 'to attain its full growth is a very beautiful plant. It 

 is of a delicate sea-green colour, with a tinge of 

 purple, and is powdered over with a very fine meal 

 or bloom. The radical leaves are large, of a rounded 

 form, waved, and deeply notched at the edges, and 



