154 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



artificial selection. Its leaves are rough, coarse, and 

 hairy, so it will not serve for the basis of a potherb ; its 

 stem is hard and stringy, so it will not serve for the basis 

 of a succulent vegetable like sea-kale or asparagus ; its 

 seeds are small and ill supplied with starches or food- 

 stuffs, so it will not serve for the basis of a grain or 

 pulse ; its root is harsh, and rapidly tapering into nu- 

 merous subdivisions, so it will not serve for the basis of 

 a swede or a turnip. Even its flowers, though gay and 

 bright enough, are too straggling and fugacious to make 

 them worth cultivating for ornamental purposes ; while 

 its fibres are not fine or long enough to twist into a good 

 rope ; and therefore the charlock is probably condemned 

 to remain to the end of its existence nothing more than 

 a mere field weed, hated by all farmers, and rooted out 

 mercilessly as a dangerous competitor to the pampered 

 corn crops. 



Most of the cabbage tribe present, on the whole, very 

 much the same general characteristics ; and there are, 

 accordingly, certain fixed limitations in their possible 

 uses which can seldom or never be overcome. So far as 

 I know, not a single one of the cabbages, or of the 

 whole crucifer tribe to which they belong, ever yields 

 an edible seed ; and in this they contrast strongly with 

 the grasses and the pea-flowers, which supply us with 

 almost all our principal grains and food-stuffs. The 

 reason is that the crucifers have never learned to lay up 

 a separate store of albumen beside the seed-leaves of 

 their embryo, nor even to fill the seed-leaves themselves 

 with starches to maintain the young plant in the earlier 

 stages of its struggling existence. On the other hand, 

 those cabbageworts which deviate slightly from the cen- 

 tral charlock type may be utilized in certain other ways, 

 in accordance with the nature of the deviation. Here, 



