TUE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
97 
VARIEGATED KALES. 
(With Coloured Illustration of Stuart and Mein's Variegated Kales.) 
OMPARATIVELY few of our readers, we imagine, are 
familiar with the beautiful plants, leaves of which are 
represented in the accompanying plate. They are 
cheap, and we cannot fairly say that they are choice ; 
but as decorative plants they are peculiarly useful, and 
by those who understand them they are highly valued, for they take 
a place in the flower garden that no other plants can fill, and those 
who are disposed to look down upon them (as we confess we have 
hitherto ourselves been), will perliaps find in the few remarks we 
have to offer reasons for regarding them with some degree of 
respect. 
In all seed catalogues there are offers of variegated kales, and in 
the large catalogues there are described half-a-dozen or more sorts. 
It is known to a few that when circumstances are favourable to the 
employment of these kales as bedding plants, they are remarkably 
effective, but the general opinion is against them ; and it is not to 
be wondered at, for cabbages do not, at first thought of the matter, 
appear to have any claims upon our attention as decorative plants. 
However, it is a matter of fact that in a few gardens in Scotland, 
and notably in that of Miss Hope, at Wardie Lodge, a charming 
ettect is produced in the winter season by planting variegated kales 
in the beds that were occupied during summer with the ordinary 
bedders. In common with many other cultivators who are blessed 
with inquiring minds, we have again and again tried these kales, in 
hope of obtaining a good out-door display during the depth of 
winter by their aid, and on every occasion our failure has been com- 
plete. The strong soil and the warm climate of Stoke Kewington 
have made gaunt, coarse things of them, or, at all events, if they 
proved to be handsome, as they generally did while standing in the 
kitchen garden, they changed suddenly to gawky things the instant 
they were transferred to the flower garden. 
Finding that those who took to the kales in earnest made no 
sign of repentance, we obtained samples of seeds from several 
quarters, and made another attempt, and succeeded. Instead of 
sowing the seeds with the usual eating cabbages and broccolis, in 
March, we waited until April, and then sowed samples on the shady 
side of a large bank of brick rubbish and garden sw^eepings, the 
slope being slightly levelled to make a seed bed. Thus we began on 
a starving system, and the practice proved to be right. When the 
plants were large enough to handle, we planted them rather thick 
in the poorest plot of ground we could find, though in the end it 
proved still too good for them. All the sorts grew too strong to 
satisfy us, but they were a really wonderful lot, and we might have 
made a fine parterre display with them. The way to use them in 
the flower garden is to plant them in the beds so deep that the 
April. 7 
