22 SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 



the delicate brocoli, had so humble an origin, not 

 to exclude that familiar vegetable, of which Dr. 

 Johnson most unsentimentally declared, " Of all 

 the flowers of the garden, I like the cauliflower." 

 The Doctor should have lived at Tarragona, where 

 the cauliflower is said to reach the enormous 

 weight of forty pounds. No instance exists in 

 which a vegetable is so altered by culture from its 

 original condition. Our kitchen-gardens, with their 

 compact cabbages, their Brussels sprouts and 

 Savoys, indicate this ; but this is little compared 

 to the tall Caesarean cow-cabbage, which from its 

 arborescent nature is called the tree-kale, and 

 which in La Vended is said to be sixteen feet 

 high ; while one of its varieties, the palm-kale, is 

 commonly ten or twelve feet in height, with a 

 heart sweet and tender enough to fit it for the 

 food of man, and leaves which furnish a plentiful 

 nutriment for animals. Our cliff cabbage is fre- 

 quently gathered from the heights in the neigh- 

 bourhood where it is abundant, and is said to be 

 a good boiled vegetable, but its uncooked leaves 

 are very bitter to the taste. It was very early 

 cultivated; indeed, from time immemorial some 

 of its numerous varieties have been valued, though 

 the common variety with a close compact heart, 

 peculiarly called cabbage, was for some years 

 imported from Holland into this country. Sir 

 Anthony Ashley first cultivated it in England : 

 but it was more than a century before its culture 

 became so general as to render importation from 

 Holland unnecessary. This grower of our esculent 

 plant is said to have had a cabbage sculptured on his 

 monument at Wimborne St. Giles, in Dorsetshire, 

 in memory of this service rendered to his country. 



