AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 69 



tion ; as, for illustration, turnip seed sown fresh from the pod 

 in August may vegetate in forty-eight hours, while that which 

 is two years old, sown at the same time, will require four or 

 six days, or more. But peas two years old not only require 

 longer time to vegetate ; they are also expected to grow with 

 shorter vines, and yield an earlier and more abundant crop of 

 seed. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Vegetable Forms, Importance of; Original; Improvements in. Vegeta- 

 bles, Color of; Deterioration of; Stock or Character of. 



VEGETABLE FORMS. 



THE form of certain vegetables is of importance on various 

 accounts. It affects the cost of production and the weight of 

 crop. It sometimes indicates quality, and often settles at 

 once the desirableness or undesirableness of a particular varie- 

 ty, either for the cook or the cultivator, or for both. 



Excepting the small wild bulb from which the onion has 

 been obtained, and not forgetting that the parsnep and carrot, 

 in their wild state, are somewhat fleshy, we may assume that 

 all swelling, fleshy rooting or heading vegetables originally 

 threw downward a single hard, wiry root, as the burdock, or 

 upward a single and almost naked stem, as the wild lettuce. 



In all these, cultivation, working sometimes blindly, and at 

 others with precalculation of results, has produced various 

 striking changes. The leaf of the well -cultivated cabbage has 

 become thick and marrowy, and it has acquired a habit of head- 

 ing before throwing up its seed-stalk. 



In the beet, turnip, etc., we find a habit of fleshy enlarge- 

 ment or swelling. So great is the change thus induced that, 

 instead of a naked, hard root or stem, we have vegetable forms 

 advancing from this by various gradations, until the root 

 spreads itself horizontally to a thin, flat form. The change 

 has, in fact, proceeded beyond this, and shown us forms, as in 

 some varieties of the turnip, concave on one or both sides, of 

 which latter the yellow Malta is an illustration. Figure 80 1, 

 page 186. 



