BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN 
LEAFLETS 
THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
Series VI Brooklyn, N. Y., May 1, 1918 No. 3 
OUR COMMON GARDEN VEGETABLES 
THEIR HISTORY AND THEIR ORIGIN 
When buying the day’s vegetables or planting a garden to raise a 
year’s supply, did you ever consider how man came to grow these 
particular plants — celery, potatoes, radishes, beets, etc., instead of hun- 
dreds of others that might possibly have been just as tasty and produc- 
tive? Have you ever seen the wild ancestors of some of our most palatable 
vegetables? And if so, did you recognize them as such? As an explorer 
in search of new and valuable food possibilities, would it occur to you to 
“try out’’ the weedy wild carrot, wild parsnip and wild lettuce of the 
vacant lots and uncultivated fields? Do you realize how strange the 
vegetable marts of Europe previous to the discovery of America would 
have looked to you? There would have been, no string beans, no lima 
beans, no potatoes, sweet or Irish, no corn, no pumpkins, vegetable mar- 
rows or squashes, no peppers and no tomatoes, for these are all native to 
America. Did you know that all the cabbage tribe, the cresses, turnips, 
carrots, beets, and many others now commonly grown about New York 
City were immigrants like ourselves, many of them having journeyed 
from the East Indies, Central Africa, Northern Asia and far New Zea- 
land? And if you should talk to the men in charge of introducing new 
plants, — the agricultural officials of our federal and state experiment 
stations, and the collectors of the big seed companies— they would tell you 
the earth is still being ransacked for new things to eat in the vegetable 
line. They could tell you the vegetable ingredients of “chow main’’ and 
“chop suey,’’ of how cheaply and efficiently the Chinese and the inhabitants 
of other densely populated regions live practically without the use of 
meat. They could tell you of giant winter radishes (40-50 lbs. in weight) 
from Japan, of oriental beans that produce twice the quantity per acre 
that ours do, of muskmelons that keep for months, and various other queer 
green-grocer’s wares. And if you go to your local botanist, he can tell 
you of lamb’s quarter, of wild mustard, of pokeweed and other weeds and 
wild plants that grow in profusion about you and go to waste every year 
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