On the Improvement of the Wild Carrot. 



849 



tention to garden varieties ; and they have on this account been 

 much overlooked.* 



If, however, attention be confined to this subject, and we enquire 

 how the feeble, filamentous, and scarcely fleshy tap-roots of some 

 wild plants have been transformed into our bulky kitchen-garden 

 roots ; or how the head of the cabbage has been created ; or 

 by what process the tapering leaves upon the stalk of the wild cab- 

 bage have been agglomerated and compressed into a compact and 

 fleshy mass, we shall find ourselves embarrassed by the enquiry. 

 Modern horticulture, advanced as it is in many respects, presents no 

 similar example. Some new vegetables indeed have been intro- 

 duced into the gardens of our own days, or during the last century ; 

 and they have remained such, or nearly such, as they were originally. 

 A mongst them, one may instance the Sea-Kale ; the culture of 

 which during the last 40 or 50 years has become general in 

 England, where it is the object of much care ; nevertheless, the 

 plant has, hitherto, experienced no sensible changes in its form or 

 its dimensions.")* It is the same with Tetragonia expansa, which 

 is now what it was at its first appearance, and of other kitchen-gar- 

 den kinds of more recent introduction. 



As for our old vegetables, they have been transmitted to us 

 ready formed by the generations which have preceded us. The 

 origin of most of them is traceable to unknown times ; there are 

 even some of which the wild sorts exist no longer, or which have 



* M. Decandolle, I believe, is the first among the great botanists who has caused the 

 necessity of studying these plants to be felt ; he has insisted upon it in several of his 

 works, and resolving to add application to precept, he has published an important paper 

 on the species and varieties of the cabbage and horseradish cultivated in Europe. A 

 very estimable and learned man, Duchesne, has with similar views studied Strawberries 

 and Gourds, of which he has given Monographs. 



f Some Amateurs, who dwell in the neighbourhood of the coasts where the Sea-Kale 

 grows, have assured me that it is not uncommon to find specimens of it, in its natural 

 state, as fine and as much developed as those which are seen in the gardens. 



