500 
On the Kohl-Rabi. 
sale in the ' Morning Chronicle ' newspaper, and " to be had at 
Grigg's Coffee House, in Covent Garden." Thirty years later (in 
1805), we find Mr. Thomas Gibbs, seedsman, in London, offering 
for sale " twenty-five cwt. of the seed of the Kohl-Rabi." 
From this circumstance we infer, that the plant at that time 
must have been cultivated to some extent : if not, it is probable 
— although we merely hazard the conjecture — that the Board of 
Agriculture may have offered a premium for the growth of the. 
seed, or of the root itself. From the date of this advertisement to 
the publication of our 'Agriculturist's Manual,' in 1836, very 
little attention appears to have been given to the cultivation of 
the Kohl-Rabi, and, with rare exceptions, we find no mention of 
it in the catalogues of seedsmen. 
In 1837, according to Mr. Towers, the attention of the English 
farmer was first systematically directed to its culture as a field 
crop. In that year the turnip crop suffered so severely from the 
ravages of the caterpillar (the larva of the moth jTlgrostis ?), that 
a substitute for it was eagerly looked for. Mr. Towers describes 
the plants of Kohl-Rabi, then raised from German seed, as hav- 
ing the so-called bulbs supported " by a six-inch pedestal stem, 
which was so stout and fibrous as to defy the grub." A couple 
of years appears to have been sufficient to allay the panic caused 
by the caterpillars; for, in 1839, according to the same authority, 
the culture of turnips was resumed and carried on more exten- 
sively than ever, and Kohl-Rabi as a field crop seems, for the 
time, to have been abandoned. It must be borne in mind, how- 
ever, that Mr. Towers' experience is confined to within the range 
of Croydon, where his farm was situated. 
In 1817, Mr. Hewitt Davis drew attention to the importance 
of the plant as a substitute for the turnip,* stating that he had 
been very successful for some years in raising heavy crops upon 
poor soils ; contrasting, at the same time, its great value in com- 
parison with Swedes and common turnips, " which had failed 
greatly that year in the south of England, from long-continued 
drought." 
The culture of Kohl-Rabi has since been rapidly extending, 
both in England and Ireland, especially in the latter country : its 
growth having been fostered and encouraged by the premiums 
offered by the Royal Dublin Society. In Scodand its culture is 
at present very limited, from a belief that the climate is too 
severe. This prejudice it is difficult to overcome ; but our ex- 
perience enables us to state, that the Kohl-Rabi is hardier than 
the Swede, and that, even with the thermometer 10° below the 
freezing point, it is quite unaffected by frost. 
* ' Farming Essay?,' p. 70. 
