1520 - History of Garden Vegetables. [June - 
HISTORY OF GARDEN VEGETABLES. 
BY E. LEWIS STURTEVANT, A.M., M.D." 
(Continued from page 444.) 
CABBAGE. Brassica oleracea capitata L. 
HE headed cabbage, in its perfection of growth and its mul- 
titude of varieties, bears every evidence of being of ancient 
origin. It does not appear, however, to have been known to 
Dioscorides, or to Theophrastus, of the Greeks, nor to Cato, 
among the Romans; but a few centuries later their presence is 
indicated by Columella? and Pliny,’ who, in his “ Tritianon” 
kind, speaks of the head being sometimes a foot in diameter, 
and going to seed the latest of all the sorts known to him. The 
descriptions are, however, obscure, and we may well believe that 
if the hard-headed varieties now known had been seen in Rome 
at this time they would have received mention. Olivier de 
Serres, quoted by A. Soyer,‘ says, “ White cabbages came from 
the north, and the art of making them head was unknown in the 
time of Charlemagne.” Albertus Magnus,’ who lived in the 
thirteenth century, seems to refer to a headed cabbage in his 
“ Caputium,” but there is no description. The first unmistakable 
reference to a cabbage that I find is by Ruellius, in 1536, who 
calls them capucos coles or cabutos, describes the head as globular 
and often very large, even a foot and a half in diameter. Yet 
the word cabaches and caboches used in England in the fourteenth 
century indicates the cabbage as then known and distinguished 
from coles? Ruellius also describes a loose-headed form called 
Romanos, and this name and description, when we consider the 
difficulty of heading cabbages in a warm climate, would lead us 
to believe that the Roman varieties were not our present solid- 
heading type, but loose-headed, and perhaps of the Savoy class. 
_ Our present cabbages are divided by De Candolle® into five 
types or races,—viz., the flat-headed, the round-headed, the egg- 
£ Director of the vy York Agricultural Experiment ies Geneva, 
Columella, lib. x. 1. 138. 3 Pliny, lib, xix. c. 41. 
4 Soyer, kaan 61. 
5 Albertus Magnus, De Veg., lib. vii. c. go. 
é Ruellius, De Natura gin 1536, 477. 
7 The Forme of Cury, 1390, Warner’s sn Culin., 1791. 
3 A. P. De R s, Memoir, Lond. Hort. Soc. Trans., 1821. 
