THE KITCHEN GARDEN 237 



flattened, or pointed — of loose, open shape like a 

 rose, or tight and hard as a drumhead — come from 

 this one wild plant, but also the many varieties of 

 Cauliflower and Broccoli, where the parts most de- 

 veloped are the flower-bud and thickened flower-stalk. 

 And besides these there are the kinds selected for 

 their hardiness, and by slow degrees coaxed and 

 persuaded into taking the forms of the winter Kales, 

 some nearly smooth of leaf, but often with the 

 leaf-edges heavily curled. Then another of the 

 hardiest of these winter green things is the Brussels 

 Sprout, its stem thickly set Avith tiny little tight 

 Cabbages just the size for a doll's dinner- table. A 

 still more remarkable development of this many- 

 sided vegetable is the thickening of the base of the 

 stem into a turnip-like root, as in the Swede. This 

 concerns the farm rather than the garden, though 

 a young Swede is w^ell worth cooking. Then there 

 is the Kohl-Rabi, another capital turnip-rooted 

 Cabbage, in whose case the bulb-shaped swelling is 

 a little higher up the stem, so that it is just clear 

 of the ground, instead of being partly underground 

 as in the Swede. Kohl-Rabi should be more used, 

 for when cooked at just the right age it is an 

 excellent and delicate vegetable. But it is not yet 

 generally popular in England because it is so often 

 left to grow too large. If it is brought in at the 

 size of a billiard-ball, or of a thickness not greater 

 than an inch and three-quarters, it is excellent, but 



