BOOK XIX. xLi. 137-140 



Caesar, not witiiout rcproof fVoni his father Tiberius. 

 After the sprout-cabbagc froni the sanie stalk we 

 get summer and autumn sprouts, and then wiuter 

 ones, and a second crop of sprout-cabbage, as no 

 kind of plant is equally productive, until it gets 

 exhausted by its own fertility. The second sowing 

 begins at the spring equinox, and the seedling is 

 bedded out at the end of spring, so that it may not 

 bear in the sprout-cabbage stage before making 

 cabbage-head ; the third is about midsummer, and the 

 produce of this is bedded out during the summer if 

 the place is rather damp and in autumn if it is drier. 

 It has a more agreeable taste if it has not had much 

 moisture or manure, but makes a more abundant 

 growth if they have been plentiful. Ass's dung 

 niakes the most suitable manure for it. 



Growing cabbages is also one of the ways of 

 supplying table luxuries, so it will not bc out of 

 place to pursue the subject at greater length. A 

 way to produce a kale of outstanding flavour and 

 size is if first of all you sow it in ground that 

 has been dug, and next keep pace with the shoots 

 breaking through the soil by earthing thcm up and 

 when they begin to rise to a luxuriant height make 

 another pile of earth against them by raising the 

 bank so that not more than their head emerges. 

 The kind so grown is called Tritian cabbage, and 

 it may be estimated that it takes twice the usual 

 outlay and trouble. There are quite a number of 

 other varieties : Cumae cabbagc, with its leaf close to 

 the ground and a spreading head ; La Riccia cabbage, 

 rn) taller in hciglit, with a leaf more plcntiful than 

 tendcr — this kind is considcred extremely useful 

 because underneath almost all the leaves it throws 



511 



