slightly improved state before heads of any kind were developed.
Sturtevant, quotes Oliver de Serres, as saying that, "White cabbages
came from the north, and the art of making them head was unknown in the
time of Charlemagne." He adds that the first unmistakable reference to
our headed cabbage that he finds is by Rullius, who in 1536 mentions
globular heads, a foot and a half in diameter. It was probably about
this time that the cauliflower, and several other forms of the species
made their appearance. There is difference of opinion as to whether our
cauliflowers or the broccolis were first to originate. London believed
that the broccolis, which Miller says first came to England from Italy
in 1719, were derived from the cauliflower. Phillips, in his "History of
Cultivated Vegetables," said, in 1822, that the broccoli appears to be
an accidental mixture of the common cabbage and the cauliflower, but of
this he gives no proof.

Sturtevant says: "It is certainly very curious that the early botanists
did not describe or figure the broccoli. The omission is only
explainable on the supposition that it was confounded with the
cauliflower, just as Linnaeus brought the cauliflower and the broccoli
into one botanical variety." When broccolis came to England from Italy,
they were at first known under the names "sprout-cauliflower," or
"Italian asparagus." This, however, is not sufficient reason for
believing that the broccolis are derived from the cauliflowers, as the
word broccoli was, and still is, applied in Italy to the tender shoots
of various kinds of cabbages and turnips.

Some recent authorities have believed, since the broccoli is coarser
than the cauliflower, more variable in character, more robust in habit,
and requires a longer season, that it is the original form, of which the
cauliflower is only an improvement. Thus, Vilmorin says: "The sprouting
or asparagus broccoli represents the first form exhibited by the new
vegetable when it ceased to be the earliest cabbage, and was grown with
an especial view to its shoots; after this, by continued selection and
successive improvements, varieties were obtained which produced a
compact white head, and some of these varieties were still further
improved into kinds which are sufficiently early to commence and
complete their entire growth in the course of the same year; these last
named kinds are now known by the name of cauliflowers."

At the Cirencester Agricultural Colleg