230 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



i 



the secrets, in the work of Nature, which 

 cannot be accounted for. The Date has the 

 same peculiar quality ; for, when we plant 

 the kernel of this fruit, it is uncertain whe- 

 ther the offspring will be a male or female 

 palm-tree. 



The flowers of the fruitful hemp are her- 

 maphrodital, and, like the lofty palm tree, or 

 some of the lowly strawberry plants, produce 

 abortive seed, without the aid of the farina 

 of the barren plant. It is a curious misap- 

 pellation of the cultivators of hemp, who call 

 the fruitful plants male, and those that are 

 barren female; we are more surprised that 

 botanical writers should fall into the error, 

 or, rather, copy this blunder from one work 

 into another for so many ages, without cor- 

 recting a mistake that inverts the order of 

 Nature. 



The unfruitful plants are forwarder than 

 the fruitful ones by a month : this is ascer- 

 tained by the fading of the blossoms, the 

 falling of the farina fecundans, and the stalks 

 becoming of a yellowish cast. These plants 

 should be drawn out and worked, if possible, 

 while green, the hemp being then finer than 

 that which is previously dried. The Abb6 

 Bralle, in a Treatise upon the Culture and 



