THE CABBAGE CROP. 



THE CABBAGE is the most direct descendant from the 

 original stock of this "genus" of plants the common "Sea 

 Colewort," or Brassica oleracea by which name the cul- 

 tivated cabbage of our gardens and fields is still known. 

 It appears, in some of its varieties, to have been well 

 known to the ancients, and, as a garden vegetable, it has 

 been cultivated in Europe for many centuries past. It 

 was a favourite culinary herb with the Romans, being de- 

 scribed by Cato, Columella, Pliny, and others, and doubt- 

 less was carried by their victorious legions into Germany, 

 Gaul, and Britain ; and when not introduced into cultiva- 

 tion directly by them, it probably was so by their suc- 

 cessors during the spread of religious corporations, the 

 monks being for many years the sole depositories of learn- 

 ing, and also the advanced gardeners and farmers of the 

 time. By their means it found its way gradually to the 

 northern parts of the kingdom, and also to Ireland, as 

 Gerarde (1597), in describing the family of coleworts, parti- 

 cularizes the cabbage as the Brassica capitata alba, which, 

 he says, is "the great ordinarie cabbage knowne every- 

 where, and as commonly eaten all over this kingdome." 

 In its wild state it is a biennial, and most of the species 

 and varieties forming the genus in their cultivated state 

 still remain so. 



In the different varieties of the cabbage, the remarkable 

 tendency to increase, induced by cultivation in the genus 

 Brassica, is exhibited in the leaves of the plant ; neither 

 the root nor the leaf-stalks showing any tendency to swell 



