156 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



perennial stock ; and while its flowers, roots, and seeds 

 remain unaltered, we have diverted its leaves into a solid 

 head, and produced from them the various cabbages and 

 curly kales of our gardeners. On the other hand, when 

 we choose to fix ourselves upon the blossoms alone, we 

 make (or rather continuously select) a diseased form 

 with overfed abortive buds, which gives us from the self- 

 same stock our cauliflowers and broccoli. So one can 

 readily see w r hy the rain which suits the narrow fibrous 

 rootlets of the charlock, and does not hurt even the sim- 

 ple wild navew, rots and destroys the big artificially 

 plimmed-out taproot of our cultivated turnips. 



The other crucifers less closly related to the true cab- 

 bages exemplify the same principle even more widely, 

 and cast much interesting side-light on the strong and 

 weak points of the analogy between man's conscious 

 selective action and the unconscious preference of nature 

 for the best adapted varieties. Scurvy-grass is a crucifer 

 somewhat more advanced in type than the cabbageworts, 

 in that its flowers are white instead of yellow ; and from 

 one of its more distant south-eastern relatives we have 

 adopted our own horseradish, whose pungent root, 

 favored and preserved in the natural order of things 

 because of the protection it afforded the plant against 

 gnawing animals, has been utilized by ourselves for the 

 sake of its value as a relish in small quantities to our 

 more jaded palates. In the water-cress and other 

 cresses, which are also members of the same group, we 

 are similarly attracted by the very essences which were 

 meant to deter the animate creation ; though in this 

 case we ourselves do not care for them except when the 

 plants are very young and tender. Sea-kale, again, is a 

 maritime Devonshire weed, introduced into our gardens 

 during the last century ; and here the portion of the 



