XXVII 
THE CABBAGE COUSINS 
I SN’T IT ODD that a wild plant that grows on the 
chalk cliffs of England has some children that ride 
about the country in carloads as cabbage heads, other off¬ 
spring that we call Brussels sprouts, and still others that 
are sold in the markets of the world as cauliflower! 
Wild cabbages still grow in southern and western Eu¬ 
rope. They look much like the domestic variety, except 
that they are scrubby and undeveloped. They are plants 
of the wild mustard family that have a tendency to de¬ 
velop their leaves in a bunch. That tendency has been 
highly developed since man began to cultivate cabbage 
in his garden. The cabbage has grown more solid and 
bigger for centuries. Now it is one of the most important 
green leaf foods in the world. 
After cabbage had been living a long time in gardens, 
it was noticed that there was an occasional plant that 
grew quite differently from the rest. These plants in¬ 
stead of devoting all their attention to the one big head 
developed rows of buttons up and down their stems like 
those a bell boy wears on his jacket. These buttons, it 
was found, were in reality small cabbages. Upon trial 
they proved to be very tender and good to eat. It was in 
Belgium that the gardeners first undertook to develop 
these tiny cabbages along the stems of their garden vege¬ 
tables as an independent crop. They bred a variety of 
cabbage that had a long stem with scores of these buttons 
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