100 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Fex., 1899. 
We are much indebted to Mr. Hannay for his letter, and shall always be 
pleased to receive such interesting and valued communications from practical 
farmers, who are pioneering the farming industry in so many diverse parts of 
the colony, and following the high road to success often under the most 
disheartening circumstances. The fact that such cereals as Mr. Hannay sends 
us can be grown without receiving a single shower of rain from the date of 
sowing to that of harvesting on desert country serves to emphasise the fact that 
science in agriculture has become an absolute necessity, and will triumphantly 
disprove many statements made by pessimists as to the unsuitability of this or 
that district or soil for various crops. 
Of the two varieties of wheat, one is Allora Spring and the other appears 
to be Defiance. As will be seen by a reference to the List of Stud Wheats 
grown this season at the Hermitage Experiment Farm, near Warwick, seed of 
both these varieties can be supplied at 5s. per bushel. 
MARKET GARDENING, No. 3. 
By H. W. GORRIE, 
Horticulturist, Queensland Agricultural College. 
CABBAGE AND CAULIFLOWER. 
Att the forms of our cultivated cabbages have originated from a small, wild 
biennial plant something like a mustard plant, which is found on the coasts of 
most of the countries of Western Europe, but chiefly on the northern shores 
of the Mediterranean. 
This plant is Brassica oleracea, the wild cabbage; and it is the original 
parent of all our many varieties of cabbages, cauliflowers, Brussels sprouts, 
and, in fact, of most of the cultivated plants included in the cabbage family. 
The evolution of all these varied plants, some of which are of very great 
excellence, from this little wild cabbage, is a striking example of what can be 
accomplished by means of cultivation. 
Most of our cultivated fruits and vegetables have originated in much the 
same way from comparatively worthless beginnings, and have been brought to 
their present state by many years of intelligent cultivation. Of course it 
takes a long time to produce all these changes, and hundreds of years have 
elapsed since some of these wild forms were first taken in hand and cultivated 
‘by man. 
5 The wild cabbage has no solid head such as we are accustomed to see in 
garden cabbages, but the stems and leaves are tender and succulent, and have 
been used as food from the earliest ages. 
_ Itis supposed that the cultivated cabbage has been grown for at least 
3,000 years. 
Phny mentions six yarieties as being known in his day. These, however, 
were not the hard-headed, compact cabbages with which we are now familiar, 
but merely improved varieties of the wild cabbage without hearts. 
The first mention we haye on record of the modern headed cabbage 
occurs in the year 1536, when mention is made of cabbages with heads a footin 
diameter. About the same time, too, cauliflower and broccoli were first known. 
In theyear 1574 the traveller Rauwolf found cauliflowers cultivated in Turkey 
and Cyprus, and from the latter place cauliflowers were first introduced into 
England under the name of ‘“‘ Cyprus coleworts.” In Egypt cauliflowers have 
been grown from a very early period. In 1619 occurs the first record of 
cauliflowers having been sold in London. They were imported at that time 
from Cyprus, but very shortly afterwards France began to grow and export 
them to London. 
Very soon, however, the English gardeners took to growing cauliflowers 
themselves, and by the middle of the eighteenth century better and larger 
eauliflowers were produced in England than in any other part of Hurepe, and 
