42 COLL\ CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



VIII. 

 RHUBARB SPROUTS. 



THE beds of the kitchen garden at the present moment 

 unintentionally afford an admirable illustration of the 

 main principle upon which most natural colouring seems 

 to depend. In their really beautiful display of bright 

 and gracefully graduated tints they supply us with a 

 picture which, but for its familiar utilitarian character, 

 everybody would stop to observe and admire. There 

 are long sticks of rhubarb, ruddy crimson below, and 

 merging through delicate gradations of pink and white 

 into the golden yellow of the cramped and etiolated 

 leaves above. There is sea-kale, blanched in the stem, 

 and unfolding at the blade into crinkled shoots of an 

 indescribable but very dainty pale mauve or violet. There 

 are beet roots, sprouting with dark Tyrian-red leaves, 

 whose purplish veins persist even in the greening later 

 foliage. Almost every one of the spring plants has more 

 or less of these bright hues, marking them off at once 

 from the common green of full-blown summer leaves. 

 Even on the asparagus one may observe a set of little 

 bluish scales ; while the young tufts upon the carrots 

 are pale yellow or golden brown. The reason throughout 

 is a very simple one : all these spring vegetables are 



