5° 
THE AMATEUR GARDENER 
House & Garden 
WHAT 
CAN DO 
The Vast World of American Fruits and Flowers Awaits 
His 
Investigation and Improvement 
O n the shores of Southern England and of Brittany, across 
the channel, may be found the wild cabbage. It grows in 
out of the way spots, in poor soil where there is not much com¬ 
petition. It is getting old, for plants like men and nations grow 
old and less combative. The plant is often but a few inches 
tall, it possesses a somewhat fleshy, erect or crooked, semi-wiry 
stem as fits a plant which must endure adversity, and on its crown 
it bears a tuft of leaves. It is the progenitor of all living cabbage. 
Before the dawn of history it was used by primitive man, in 
western Europe, as an article of food. To tell the story of all 
this plant has done for humanity would take more space than 
we have at our disposal. It is the story of the development of 
mankind in western Europe. We may give an inkling of what 
happened, because what happened to this plant is still happening 
to every plant now growing. Some of them have not been so 
closely watched by man, however, and undoubtedly he is the loser. 
Some of these wild cabbage plants show a tendency to form 
small tufts or little heads on the tops of the stem and from such 
have arisen all the head cabbage we now grow; some show a 
tendency to reddish leaves and these gave rise to the red cabbage, 
red kale and seme of the latter are of marked decorative value; 
the leaves of other plants showed a puckered and blistered appear¬ 
ance and these gave rise to the Savoy cabbage, and the puckered 
and wrinkled leaved kale; others show a tendency to grow erect 
and not form heads, these gave rise to the collards, grown largely 
through the Southern states and a well known example of which is 
the Jersey walking stick cabbage grown on the Island of Jersey 
in the English Channel; the plant grows over 6' tall, the leaves 
are pulled off from time to time to feed the Jersey cows and finally 
the stalk is harvested and made into a walking stick to sell to 
the tourists. Brussels sprouts were developed from plants which 
showed a tendency to form little heads in the axils of the leaves 
on the stem; cauliflower and broccoli from plants which showed 
a tendency to bear thickened flower stalks; kohl rabi which is a 
cabbage with a thickened stem, came from plants showing a ten¬ 
dency to store a reserve food supply in their stem. A closely 
related plant—rape, was developed for its seed and the oil which 
could be secured from same. The wild cabbage plant, in order 
to survive, had to provide some way of protecting its seed through 
periods of drought and cold, and the hard outer seed case and 
the high content of oil in the seed were the means adopted. So 
much for the plant. 
The reason for this story is to point out that some primitive 
woman, in her hunt for food for herself and children, began to 
select and protect cabbage plants, and later the men helped. It 
was primarily woman’s work. This habit of caring for plants 
has been going on for so long in certain parts of the world that 
it has become second nature. The rigors of winter in parts of 
Europe forced it upon the inhabitants of necessity and, where 
this happened, we now see the care and selection of plants under¬ 
taken for pleasure as well as profit. 
M en and cabbages and other plants reach their highest 
degree of achievement at the most northern or southern point 
at which they can live and function fully. A fruit reaches 
its highest flavor when grown at the most northern or southern 
point at which it can live and fully mature its fruit, which is a 
very good reason for trying to grow many tropical fruits in sub¬ 
tropical America, and for trying to grow all plants at their most 
northern limits. The cabbage plant saved the Anglo-Saxon and 
Teutonic people, as well as the natives of Brittany in the past 
and they do well to care for it now, and as their care and knowl¬ 
edge of the plant increases, their reward becomes more sure. It 
is true in every case. 
We grow to love that which we have to work to save, and this 
is perhaps the explanation of the presence of the great mass of 
amateurs interested in gardening in Western Europe. They love 
the soil, their garden, and the plants therein and I have frequently 
heard an old English farm laborer exclaim as he was enjoying 
inspecting and handling his plants, as though talking to them: 
“There’s as much human kindness in some things as in others, 
and more.” He was appreciative of the response of the plants 
to his care. 
I n America, we have not gone through the long period of 
chastening which attended the settlement of Europe. Ours 
is a sparsely settled country, with thirty people where Great 
Britain has 700. We brought plants with us, and in addition, 
our supply of native plants is so vast we are but beginning to 
realize what we possess. 
A realization of our possessions is going to come with the 
development, or rather the revival of the spirit of work with plants 
among our people. Most of us have it latent, it merely needs a 
spark and a little opportunity to arouse in America an interest in 
amateur gardening which will make all previous developments 
insignificant. I say this advisedly, because we have such a wealth 
of flora to begin with and such facilities for securing anything 
we desire from anywhere, we have a background of research and 
knowledge which was previously unknown and, most important 
of all, means of making this knowledge available to all; a condi¬ 
tion which did not previously exist. To get the joy out of the 
work one must do it, and do it with understanding. One must 
know the plants, their ways, and capabilities; the great work of 
selecting improved plants has been done by the amateur, and 
more good things are being lost today than are found because 
some amateur has not kept in sufficiently close touch with his 
plants so that he can recognize a good thing when he sees it. Think 
of the advance possible if a million pair of trained eyes were 
searching America’s flora for better plants! 
T he bush lima bean came very near being lost because its 
value was not recognized. After being placed in the hands 
of a seedsman as a desirable find he failed to realize how 
great an advance had been made. It was a chance remark which 
led Peter Henderson, the seedsman of New York, to hunt it up 
and he did not wait long after getting the directions—he went 
at once and got all the stock, and we all grow bush limas today. 
Some years ago, a grower of garden peas in New York happen¬ 
ing to pull off a pod from a plant and eat the peas, remarked as 
he did so that “those peas are sweet as sugar” and realizing the 
advance that had been made, he immediately set to work to find 
the plant and save the seed, and this plant became the progenitor 
of all the varieties of sugar peas we now grow. 
{Continued on page 88) 
