Geo. Pray do, sir.
Tut. The pungency of taste which so many of them possess has caused them to be used for salad herbs. Thus we have cress, water-cress, and mustard; to which might be added many more which grow wild, as lady-smock, wild-rocket, hedge-mustard, and jack-by-the-hedge, or sauce-alone. Mustard, you know, is also greatly used for its seeds, the powder or flower of which, made into a sort of paste with salt and water, is eaten with many kinds of meat. Rape-seeds are very similar to them, and from both an oil is pressed out, of the mild or tasteless kind, as it is likewise from cole-seed, another product of this class. Scurvy-grass, which is a pungent plant of this family, growing by the seaside, has obtained its name from being a remedy for the scurvy. Then there is horseradish, with the root of which I am sure you are well acquainted, as a companion to roast beef. Common radish, too, is a plant of this kind, which has a good deal of pungency. One sort of it has a root like a turnip, which brings it near in quality to the turnip itself. This last plant, though affording a sweet and mild nutriment, has naturally a degree of pungency and rankness.
Geo. That, I suppose, is the reason why turnipy milk and butter have such a strong taste?
Tut. It is.
Har. Then why do they feed cows with it?
Tut. In this case as in many others, quality is sacrificed to quantity. But the better use of the turnip to the farmer is to fatten sheep and cattle. By its assistance he is enabled to keep many more of these animals than he could find grass or hay for; and the culture of turnips prepares his land for grain as well, or better, than could be done by letting it lie quite fallow. Turnip husbandry, as it is called, is one of the capital modern improvements of agriculture.
Geo. I think I have heard that Norfolk is famous for it.
Tut. It is so. That county abounds in light sandy lands, which are peculiarly suitable to turnips. But they are now grown in many parts of England besides. Well—but we must say something more about cabbage, an article of food of very long standing. The original species of this is a seaside plant, but cultivation has produced a great number of varieties well known in our gardens, as white and red cabbage, kale, colewort, brocoli, borecole, and cauliflower.
Har. But the flower of cauliflower does not seem at all like that of cabbage or turnip.
Tut. The white head, called its flower, is not properly so, but consists of a cluster of imperfect buds. If they are left to grow for seed, they throw out some spikes of yellow flowers like common cabbage. Brocoli heads are of the same kind. As to the head of white or red cabbage, it consists of a vast number of leaves closing round each other, by which the innermost are prevented from expanding, and remain white on account of the exclusion of the light and air. This part, you know, is most valued for food. In some countries they cut cabbage-heads into quarters, and make them undergo a kind of acid fermentation; after which they are salted and preserved for winter food, under the name of sour-krout.