^72 GARDENING. 



their surplus moisture, and then house them care- 

 fully. This is best done by putting them in layers 

 in a dry cellar, and interposing between them a 

 slight covering of sand. 



A few of the largest and finest roots should be 

 kept for seed. Twenty of them, set out in the 

 spring and occasionally laboured, will give nearly 

 a bushel of seed. 



THE CABBAGE (Brasica) is a genus of plants con- 

 taining several species, of which the cabbage, prop- 

 erly so called, and two or three others, are objects 

 of garden culture. It is only of the first (to which 

 botanists have given the name of Brasica Oleracea) 

 and its varieties that we mean to speak at present, 

 and of these there are more than fifty ;* some of 

 which differ so entirely from others as to have puz- 

 zled the savans in finding for them any common 

 character.! To extenuate, if not to extinguish, this 

 reproach to science, M. Duchesne has ingeniously 

 divided them into six races, distinguished by the 

 parts which severally render them objects of culti- 

 vation, viz. : 



The Oleracea, cultivated for the seed, which gives 

 an oil ; 



The Viridis, for its open and upright long and 

 broad leaves ; 



The Capitata, for its leaves, in a round or flat and 

 compact form, called a head; 



* When Brussonnet was at the head of the great national 

 garden at Altfort, in France, he had collected more than fifty 

 of these varieties. 



t " Le chou, dont les varietes sont si nombreuses (j'en ai vu 

 cultiver simultanement plus de cinquante) et si differentes les 

 unes des autres, qu'il est impossible de leur assigner un charac- 

 tere commun, est une plante annuelle originaire des bords de la 

 mer. " PARME NTIER. 



The cabbage, of which the varieties are so numerous (I have 

 seen more than fifty different kinds cultivated together), and so 

 unlike each other that it is impossible to ascribe to them a com- 

 mon character, is an annual plant, originally growing on the 

 borders of the sea. 



