BOOK XIX. xLi. 143-XL11. 146 



weed is placed under the foot-stalk, or else a pinch of 

 poundcd soda, as much as can be picked up with 

 three fingers ; and some have a plan of sprinkling 

 the leaves with soda ground up with trefoil seed. 

 Soda added in cooking also preserves the green- 

 ness of cabbages, as does also Apicius's " recipe for 

 steeping them in oil and salt before they are boiled. 

 There is a method of grafting vegetables by cutting 

 short the shoots and inserting into the pith of the stalk 

 seed obtained from other plants ; this has even been 

 done in the case of wikl cucumber. There is also a 

 kind of wild cabbage which has been made famous 

 particularly by the songs and jests of the troops at 

 the triumph of the late lamented Julius, as in capping 

 verscs they taunted him with having at the siege of 

 Durazzo made them live on white charlock — this 

 was a hit at the stinginess with which he rewarded 

 their services. This is a wild cabbage sprout. 



XLII. Of all cultivated vegetables asparagus needs Asparagun. 

 the most dehcate attention. Its origin from wild 

 asparagus has been fully explained, and how Cato xvi. 173. 

 recommends growing it in reed-beds. There is also r.r. clxi. 

 another kind less refined than garden asparagus but 

 less pungent than the wikl plant, which springs up in 

 many pkaces even in mountain districts ; the plains of 

 L pperGermany arefull ofit, the emperorTiberiusnot 

 ineptly rcmarking that in that country a plant vcry 

 like asparagus grows as a weed. In fact the kind that 

 grows wild in the isLand of Nisita off the coast of 

 Campania is deemed far the best asparagus there is. 

 Garden asparagus is grown from root-chmips. for it 

 is a phint with a large amount of root and it buds very 

 deep down. When the tliin stem first shoots above 

 ground the plant is green, and tlie shoot while 



