QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 65 



vegetables, sometimes paying forty dollars per acre for rent, estimate that 

 the necessary capital averages from two hundred to three hundred dollars 

 per acre, according to the amount of truck grown under glass. These 

 same men calculate the profits to be from one hundred and fifty dollars to 

 two hundred and fifty dollars per acre. 



370. Q. How long has the cabbage been in cultivation? Cabbage. 

 A. The cabbage plant in a cultivated form was known two thousand 



years ago, and at the time of Pliny six varieties were in cultivation. The 

 forms of the Brassica family are varied, some varieties being cultivated for 

 their leaves, as the cabbage, where the terminal leaf-bud alone is active ; 

 others for their inflorescence, as the cauliflower, where the terminal leaf- 

 bud is checked ; others for oil, as rape, where the terminal and lateral 

 leaf-buds are active ; others for their enlarged roots, as the turnip, where 

 the leaf-buds are the same as in rape. 



371. Q. What is the most profitable branch of market gardening ? Market 



A. In the North the most profitable vegetable growing nowadays is ^^ardenmg, 

 done under glass, both in hotbeds, hothouses and coldhouses — profitable 

 because the producers are limited in number, and as the products are sent 

 to market at seasons when the markets are not glutted — out-of-season 

 vegetables they may be styled. The most successful of such men have 

 standing contracts with the best hotels, clubs and restaurants. 



372. Q. Has there been much progress in methods of vegetable culture ? Vegetable 



» i-> a Culture. 



A. Vegetable culture at the present day is quite distinct from that of 

 the past, for while gardening has been from ancient times termed an art, 

 it may now, in its advanced condition, be termed an art supported, ex- 

 plained and dignified by nearly every science, all being called upon to 

 account for the natural phenomena of plant germination, vegetation and 

 maturity. 

 378. Q. Are all plants vegetables in a general sense ? Definition of 



A. The term Vegetable is very indefinite ; for instance, the oak tree ^^^ " ** 

 equally with the tomato is classed as a vegetable, the cucumber equally 

 with the orchid, the seaweed equally with the mushroom ; consequently, 

 in a general sense, trees and seaweed are vegetables as well as cabbages 

 or watermelons, those which are edible being termed esculent vegetables. 

 There is a more critical division of those which are used as food and 

 which may be said to pass through the kitchen for some preparatory 

 preparation, culinary vegetables being the term used to denote this class. 

 This classification omits from the class of culinary vegetables those pro- 

 ducts (as apples, grapes, pears) which can be used without cooking or 

 without preparation of any sort, but this in fact is not yet correct, for the 

 line of separation is best determined by physical characteristics. 

 374. Q. What is a culinary vegetable ? Cuiina 



A. The private gardener, the market gardener, the commission mer- Vegetables. 

 chant, all class as vegetables the potato and the tomato, the cabbage and 

 the pea, the beet and the egg plant, the celery and the corn, the lettuce 

 and the bean. This for all practical purposes is right, but physiologically 



