ilO CASE OP BRUSSELS SPROUTS. 



of proper construction upon the brick tiles between the leaves 

 without touching them. . (See various papers upon the Melon 

 in the Horticultural Transactions, and especially that in 

 vol. vii., p. 584.) 



While, however, such are the general principles upon which 

 the preservation of the peculiar qualities of the many races of 

 cultivated annuals necessarily depends, it must be confessed 

 that, according to report, there are circumstances upon which 

 science can throw no light, and which, if correctly stated, 

 depend upon conditions as yet unsuspected to exist. Of this 

 class is the following, respecting the Brussels Sprouts Cabbage, 

 given upon the authority of M. Van Mons. 



" 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 in Louvain ; but at MaKnes, 

 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 character of the original was lost. From 

 a plant in this State last described, seed was saved at my 

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

 carefully watched the plants in their growth ; I was not long 

 in discovering that they retained the same character of 

 degeneration they had assumed at MaHnes, and preserved it 

 throughout the whole course of their growth, yielding pendu- 



