PRESERVATION OP RACES BT SEED. 305 



" Much has been said of the disposition of this 

 plant to degenerate. In the soil of Brussels it 

 remains true, and I have lately observed it to do the 

 same at Louvain ; but at Malines, which is the same 

 distance from Brussels as Louvain, and where the 

 greatest attention is paid to the growth of vegetables, 

 it deviates from its proper character, after the first 

 sowing ; yet it does not seem that any particular soil 

 or aspect is essential to the plant, for it grows equally 

 well and true at Brussels, in the gardens of the town, 

 where the soil is sandy and mixed with a black moist 

 loam, as in the fields, where a compact white clay 

 predominates. The progress of deterioration at 

 Malines was most rapid ; the plants raised from seed 

 of the true sort, which I had sent there, produced the 

 sprouts in little bunches or rosettes, in their true 

 form ; seeds of those being saved, they gave plants in 

 which the sprouts did not form into little cabbages, 

 but were expanded ; nor did they shoot again at the 

 axils of the stem. The plants raised from the seeds 

 of these last mentioned only produced lateral shoots 

 with weak pendant leaves, and tops similar to the 

 shoots, so that in three generations the entire charac- 

 ter of the original was lost. From a plant in the state 

 last described, seed was saved at my request, and 

 sent back to me. I had it sown by itself, and care- 

 fully watched the plants in their growth ; I was not 

 long in discovering that they retained the same cha- 

 racter of degeneration they had assumed at Malines, 

 and preserved it throughout the whole course of their 

 growth, yielding pendulous leaves with long petioles, 



