BORECOLE. 
use. The thoroughly established subvarieties of 
it are Scotch kale, green kale, Siberian kale, or 
Sabellian borecole, Brassica oleracea acephala sa- 
bellica ; the cavalier cabbage or branchy borecole, 
B. 0. a. ramosa; the cow cabbage or tree bore- 
cole, B. o. a. arborea; German greens or curly 
borecole, B. 0. a. crispa; the hundred-headed 
cabbage or common borecole, B. o. a. vulgaris ; 
the oak-leaved borecole, B. 0. a. quercifolia ; the 
Chou-Palmier or palm-leaved borecole, B. o. a. 
palmifolia ; and the Chou-de-Beauvais or ribbed 
borecole, B. 0. a. costata. Some writers include 
also Brussels sprouts,—though this subvariety 
really belongs to the variety B. o. bullata, or 
classes with savoy cabbage; some appear like- 
wise to include subvarieties of a ribbed kind, be- 
longing to the variety B. o. costata; and some 
treat two or three of the subvarieties which we 
| have named, as well as one or two others, under 
designations which modern systematic botany 
does not recognise,—such as spreading-leaved, 
upright-leaved, Anjou kale, Chou-de-Milan, pur- 
| ple borecole, variegated borecole, ragged jack, 
| Egyptian or Rabi kale, Jerusalem kale, and Rus- 
sian, Prussian, Buda, or Manchester kale. But 
by far the best-known, most extensively diffused, 
most tender, and most useful variety is the Scotch 
kale; and this has many shades and gradations 
_ of at once size, colour, curliness, shape, and char- 
| acter, and usually sports itself into several play- 
| ful though perfectly evanescent subvarieties from 
| any one sowing; and yet, amid all its sportive- 
ness, it generally retains sufficient individuality 
to be easily distinguishable from all other sub- 
varieties. Cobbet and some other men of Cobbet’s 
stamp have been pleased, in their supercilious 
caprice, to denounce it as an abomination; yet 
almost all Scottish cottiers and farmers, and not 
a few of the inhabitants of Scottish towns, regard 
it as one of the most valuable productions of the 
kitchen- garden, and would sadly deplore the 
want of it in winter and early spring. So inve- 
terately, however, do they close their ears to all 
other designations of it than kale, green kale, 
and Scotch kale, that some of their educated, 
professional men, who have for a score of years 
superintended its cultivation in their own gar- 
dens, are as profoundly ignorant of Brassica ace- 
phala, or of borecole, or even of Siberian kale, as 
of the topography of Saturn’s moons. 
The garden cultivation of the common kinds of 
borecole is the same as the garden cultivation of 
the cabbage. The best soil is fresh, deeply- 
loosened, tolerably strong loam; but any de- 
scription of kitchen-garden soil will suit. The 
ground ought to be deeply dug, thoroughly 
pulverized, and richly manured. As the bore- 
cole comes into prime condition, immediately 
after the commencement of keen frost, or just 
when most other kitchen vegetables become unfit 
for use, and as it continues to be highly available 
up to the period of the spring shooting of its 
flower-stems, a succession of crops, in adaptation 
BORING. 489 
to its biennial habit, may be kept in progress 
throughout the year, sowings being made in late 
spring or early summer for autumn transplant- 
ing, and sowings being made in autumn for spring 
transplanting. Seedlings from a sowing at the 
close of March are fit for pricking out at the end 
of April, for final transplanting at the end of 
May, and for full use in the latter part of au- | 
tumn ; seedlings from sowings in May are fit for 
final planting in July and August; and seedlings 
from sowings in August are in fine condition for 
final planting in March or the beginning of April. 
When both pricking out and transplanting are 
practised, the former should be done when the 
leaves of the seedlings are about two inches in 
breadth, and the latter about four or five weeks 
after the pricking out. Seedlings when pricked 
out should be set six inches asunder from one 
another, and kept in a moist condition till well 
established in the ground; and young plants, 
when finally planted, whether from a seed-bed or 
a nursery-bed, ought to be set in rows 30 inches 
asunder in spring and summer plantings, and 24 | 
inches asunder in autumn plantings; if rain be | 
not frequent or copious enough to keep them | 
moist, they should be often watered till they be- | 
come fully established in the soil; and, at more | 
than one period of their advancing growth, they | 
ought to be well earthed up to prevent them 
from being uprooted or overthrown. When seed 
is desired, the strongest plants, with well-marked 
characteristics of each subvariety, ought to be | 
selected, and either allowed to stand where they | 
grow, or removed during open weather between 
the end of October and the end of February, into | 
rows three feet apart, in very deeply dug soil, | 
But if they stand where they grow, they will re- 
quire to be supported; and if removed, they 
ought, in transplanting, to be buried down to 
their heads. Propagation of any of the sub- 
varieties may be effected, in dry weather, by 
slips from the stems; but this method is very | 
little practised in Britain. . 
BORER. See Auger and ArrEs1an WELLS. 
BORING. Piercing the upper strata of a field | 
with an auger, either to ascertain the nature of 
the subsoil, to examine the mineralogical char- 
acter of the strata, to discover and tap springs 
which injure the immediate subsoil or the neigh- | 
bouring ground, or to obtain a supply of good 
spring water in circumstances in which super- 
ficial springs or productive shallow wells do not | 
See the articles Auger, Drarnine, and | 
exist. 
ARTESIAN WELLS. 
Boring is also a piercing or perforating opera- | 
tion upon such trees as the birch and the Ameri- 
can maple, to obtain as large a supply as possible 
of their sap in the season of their bleeding. 
Hither a horizontal or a slanting hole is bored, 
with a wimble, to the depth of one inch or two 
inches into the wood; and through this a copious 
discharge of sap is obtained. A tree, though 
subjected to this operation for many successive 
