BRASSICACEOUS PLANTS.— THE BORECOLE. 



115 



been about 170. When disturbed, it coils itself 

 round in the way represented in fig. 48. It has 

 been found in decayed onions and pansy roots, 

 as well as in cabbage stems. Quick-lime and 

 gas-lime, incorporated with the soil, destroy or 

 drive away these creatures." 



The cabbage is also infested by the Altica 

 consobrina, or blue cabbage-fly, or flea-beetle, 

 attacking the leaves; Anthomyia trimaculata, 

 destroying the roots ; Altica concinna, the brassy 

 cabbage-flea; Vanessa fluctuata, the caterpillars 

 of which feed on cabbage-leaves. 



Saving seed. — The whole of the Brassicae 

 are liable to change when grown from seed. 

 They cross with each other so freely that it is 

 scarcely possible to save the seed of any one 

 variety with a certainty that seedlings from 

 it will invariably come the same as the parent. 

 Certain winged insects, such as bees, engaged in 

 sucking the honey-like matter contained in the 

 nectary, an appendage to the flower known to 

 secret honey, and which is strongly exemplified in 

 many cruciform flowers, to which tribe the Bras- 

 sicae belong, carry the pollen or fertilising dust 

 from one flower to another, and thus become the 

 agents of nature in the creation of cross breeds, 

 for hybrids or mules we cannot call them. Nor 

 is it only in the same garden that these causes of 

 intermixture take place ; they extend over much 

 greater surfaces — often to the extent of a mile or 

 more ; and although we know that such do exist, 

 we do not always know when and where they 

 take place. It is impossible to save several 

 kinds of brassicaceous seeds pure in the same 

 garden, although Knight and others attempted 

 this by covering over the flowers with fine gauze 

 netting, and even by castrating the flowers when 

 artificial impregnations of opposite plants were in 

 course of experiment. It is, therefore, folly in 

 people to save their own seed, unless their garden 

 is far isolated from all others, as well as from 

 fields where brassicaceous plants are cultivated. 

 It would be, in a sense, foreign to our present 

 purpose to follow this very interesting question 

 further ; we will direct our attention now to 

 the best means of saving seed, presuming only 

 one sort is saved in the same garden within the 

 same year. 



Cabbage-seed. — Select some of the best-formed 

 specimens of the sort to be saved. They may 

 either remain in the place where they have been 

 growing, provided the climate is good, or the 

 roots may be taken up and planted in the best 

 situation the garden affords. In very cold and 

 wet localities they should be planted at the 

 bottom of a south wall, and when replanted 

 should be set so deep in the ground that only 

 a few inches of the stem may appear above 

 ground. In spring they shoot up, and during 

 summer the flower-stem is formed, and the 

 flowers produced. The side branches of the 

 stem should be cut away, as it has been proved 

 by Bastien that the middle flower-stem pro- 

 duces the best seeds, and that plants produced 

 from them are much earlier, and more perfect in 

 character, than are those produced from the side 

 or lateral branches of the flower- stem. No doubt 

 it would be of use as a precaution to cover the 



flower-stem, as soon as the flowers began to 

 open, with fine gauze netting, were it only to 

 protect them from the operations of the bees 

 and other winged insects. Flower-stems from 

 the sprouts should not be allowed to exist. In 

 a few days after the flowers begin to open, im- 

 pregnation takes place ; after that the covering 

 may be removed, for no spurious impregnation 

 can take place afterwards. Great care should 

 be taken that the flower-stems are supported so 

 as to prevent their being broken by wind or 

 otherwise, and also that the seed is allowed to 

 ripen thoroughly. To secure such, it will be 

 necessary, as soon as the seed pods are formed, 

 to cover them with netting, so as to exclude 

 birds from them, and also that the stalks should 

 be cut before the pods begin to open and shed 

 their seed. All this may be considered trouble, 

 but without such precautions no dependence 

 can be placed on the purity of the stock. Com- 

 mon seed-growers do not bestow this attention, 

 because, at the miserably low price at which all 

 kinds of seeds are now sold, it would not re- 

 munerate them. They do their best, at least 

 such of them as have a character to maintain. 

 They visit their stock-farms frequently, and 

 weed out all inferior plants, and do their best 

 to secure a fair sample. They also avoid grow- 

 ing plants of the same natural order near to each 

 other, unless it be such as do not flower at ex- 

 actly the same time. The critical period may, 

 in a general way, be embraced within the space 

 of a week, and there are several of the Brassicae 

 that do not perfect their flowers within that 

 period, and hence such may be grown side by 

 side. Such, however, as experience has taught 

 the seed-growers flower at the same time are 

 grown on separate farms, or else they confine 

 themselves to a less extended number of sorts, 

 and occupy the ground with pease, beans, carrots, 

 &c, from which there is no fear of contamination. 

 Some, upon a small scale, plant their varieties 

 of Brassicae on spots in the centre of corn or 

 other grain fields, and this greatly lessens the 

 chances of intermixture. Seed-saving in private 

 gardens is by no means a profitable speculation ; 

 yet from the frequent disappointments we meet 

 with, we are often driven to it as a measure of 

 necessity. A superior stock of Brussel sprouts, 

 or of Walcheren broccoli, or of a favourite cab- 

 bage, is of too much importance to lose wan- 

 tonly. Here, however, there is the consolation 

 that as the seeds of most of the Brassicae will 

 keep good for six or eight years, and even longer, 

 we can save Brussels sprouts one year, Wal- 

 cheren broccoli the next, and so on, including 

 those other sorts that do not flower at the same 

 time. The seed, when ripened, keeps best in the 

 straw (using the phraseology of the trade), and 

 where there is accommodation this may be done ; 

 otherwise, the seed may be thrashed out when 

 ripe, and kept in paper or canvass bags in a dry 

 airy seed-room. It is of advantage to the seed, 

 and a precaution against weevils, to examine 

 the seed three or four times during the year, 

 and to turn it out into a seed-sieve which has 

 been already rubbed over with salad oil, and to 

 toss the seed about in it until the skin receive a 

 slight coating of the oily matter, which will pre- 



