30 
AMERICAN KITCHEN GARDENER. 
end of July to the end of May.” The plants need not be Dialed at more 
than eighteen inches each way, as the head does not sprea 1 wide, and the 
side leaves drop off. In this, as in every other respect, the culture is the 
same as that of the borecole. 
Gathering the crop .—Morgan says, the sprouts must have some frost before 
gathered; but this Van Mons assures us is an erroneous opinion. In Bel¬ 
gium, the small cabbages are not esteemed if more than half an inch in 
diameter. It is usual to cut off the top about ten or fifteen days before 
gathering from the stem. In spring, when the sprouts are disposed to run 
to flower, their growth is checked by taking up the plants, and setting them 
in the ground in any shaded spot. 
To save seed .—Van Mons says, it is usual to save seeds indiscriminately 
from plants which have and those which have not been topped; but that he 
intends to save from the tops only, hoping thereby to improve the progeny. 
Whatever mode be adopted, the grand object is to place the plants where 
they will be m no danger of receiving the farina of any other of the brassica 
tribes .—Louden 
CABBAGE. 
Brassica Gleracea .— Chou Pomme , Fr.— Weiss Kopflcohl , Ger. 
The cabbage tribe is of all the classes of cultivated culinary vegetables 
trie most ancient, as w r ell as the most extensive. The brassica oleracea , being 
extremely liable to sport or run into varieties and monstrosities, has, in the 
course of time, become the parent of a numerous race of culinary produc¬ 
tions, so very various in their habit and appearance, that to many it may ap¬ 
pear not a little extravagant to refer them to the same origin. Besides the 
different sorts of white and red cabbage and Savoys, w 7 hich forrr the leaves 
into a head, there are various sorts of borecoles , which grow w*ith their 
leaves loose in the natural way, and there are several kinds of cauliflower 
and broccoli, which form their stalks or flower-buds into a head. All ol 
these, with the turnip-rooted cabbage and the Brussels sprouts, claim a com¬ 
mon origin from the single species of brassica above mentioned. Cabbage 
of some sort, White, in his History of Selborne, informs us, must have been 
known to the Saxons; for they named the month of February Sprout kale. 
Being a favorite with the Romans, it is probable that the Italian cabbage 
would be introduced at an early period into South Britain. To the inha¬ 
bitants of the north of Scotland, cabbages were first made known by the 
soldiers of the enterprising Cromwell, when quartered at Inverness .—Edin 
Ency. art. Horticulture. 
