205 
the variety or strain has already been described by the au- 
author, or in the work cited. This furnishes a rather com- 
plete bibliography of the varieties of the heading cabbage. 
The date or dates appended show that the authority is a 
seedsman from whom the seed was procured, under the 
name and in the year or years specified. An authority 
printed in Roman letters, without a date, indicates that the 
name or synonym to which it is appended has been already 
used by the authority cited. 
All synomyms that have been determined, or verified in 
the Station garden, are printed in italics. In cases of un- 
certainty, the name is followed by the interrogation point. 
It is understood that plants of all names or synonyms to 
which dates are attached have been grown at the Station, 
and have furnished the data for the descriptions. Syno- 
nyms not printed in italics have not been verified, and are 
given only on the authority appended to them. 
SYNONYMS. 
It is scarcely possible to apply the term synonym with 
reference to the cabbage and other vegetables propagated 
from seeds, in the strict sense that itis used with relation to 
plants propagated by division. In the case of vegetables, 
variability is the rule, and the precise form represented by 
a given sample of seed depends to a considerable extent 
upon the care in selection exercised by the seed grower, 
and upon the ideal of the variety in his own mind. 
It is not to be understood, therefore, that the plants grown 
from the samples of seed bearing the names included in the 
list of synonyms of any given variety were in every case 
absolutely identical, nor that one did not yield a more satis- 
factory crop than another in some cases. It is not declared 
that because ‘‘Burpee’s Superior Late Flat Dutch,” and 
*‘Henderson’s Selected Late Flat Dutch” are described as 
synonyms of Premium Flat Dutch, that all the careful 
selection that may have been expended upon these particu- 
lar strains is ignored, or that the effects of this care have 
not been seen in the plants. They are placed as synonyms 
because they are not sufficiently distinct to be described as 
separate strains. In very many cases the effects of careful 
selection, or the want of it, were clearly marked in the 
plants; effects which are frequently shown by the figures of 
the table. But it would be quite impossible to intelligibly 
describe the minute characters that constitute the differ- 
ences between such closely allied forms. Unfortunately, 
my experience with the varieties has been chiefly limited to 
garden tests. Could the thorough experience of the market 
gardener and seed grower have been added to this, many 
characters might doubtless have been better defined. 
