JOURNAL 



OF THE 



Royal Horticultural Society. 



Vol. XV. 1892. 

 Parts II. and III. 



WINTER VEGETABLES. 

 By Mr. W. Iggulden, F.R.H.S. 

 [Read Jan. 12, 1892.] 



When we remember how scarce vegetables were during the 

 winters of 1890 and '91, it seems almost incredible that there 

 are as many as twenty- eight distinct kinds available or that may 

 be had during most winters, and this without mentioning small 

 saladings. Of this number about one dozen are what are classed as 

 roots, and not more than nine can be considered as beyond the reach 

 of the owners of most gardens or the means of moderately well-to- 

 do householders. In spite, however, of this wealth of kinds of 

 vegetables that may be profitably grown for winter consumption, 

 times of great scarcity may and do prevail occasionally, and that 

 through no fault of the cultivators. Our climate is, as a rule, 

 far too moist to properly prepare the more tender vegetables 

 (notably those comprised in the Brassica family) to withstand the 

 rigours of exceptionally severe winters, and it is the loss of these 

 that is most severely felt. The wealthier classes are perhaps the 

 least affected by a scarcity of the more common green vegetables, 

 their gardens or storehouses being better stocked with a variety 

 of other vegetables which ordinarily clever cooks know how to 

 turn to good account. Much, very much, depends in all cases 

 upon the cooks, these in far too many instances being rightly 

 included among the natural enemies of the gardener, who, when 

 he finds that a considerable portion of the vegetables he sends to 



B 



