The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1902-09-12
BEAUTY IN VEGETABLES.
Carnelian of the Tomato, Royal Pur-
ple of Red Cabbage and Rich
Hues of Some others.

Amusement has been offered recent
ly by real or pretended recommen-
dation of vegetables for millinery
adornment, attributed to vegetarian
society. Doubtless, the prosaic asso-
Citations of these with cookery will bar
them from such use, says Popular Sci
ence News. But it is none the less true
that beauty of form and color abounds
in the products of the Kitchen garden;
and the subject has been wholly neg
lected perhaps because, as in other
things, it is so continually presented
to the eye that it is overlooked by
writer's. 1t has not been wholly slight
ed by the painters; some of the most
elaborate groups in "still life" pictures
have been made up of vegetables; and
kitchen gardens, too, have been the
subjects of paintings, even field of
cabbages, especially by Teutonic art
lists. 1t is in the street that the beauty
of vegetables is especially forced on
attention. OF course, the vegetables
and fruits bring their colors with them
from the country. But it is along the
barren street that the beauty is pre-
scented to us. How many of the pass
ers-by have eyes to see it and feast
upon it daily? But the italian, at least,
who often presides over it, must enjoy
polychromatic delight, for his wife
chooses blazing hues in personal adorn-
ment.
But the vegetables, of all artistic
&c nd ,ct ha 40 10 f~
be the only exception; it is pig, alike
in form, color and dirt. But, if it were
we'll cleaned, it's buff or red and it's
argus eyes might count for something.
Take the potatoes relative, however,
the tomato. When not crimson or yell
low, it is pure and intense carnelian
and perhaps it's warm tints gave it the
old name glove apple" The red cab
bage is royal purple; 1t is used by
chemists to get fine vegetable color.
The egg plant is purple even to black
ness, profoundly rich in hue. The
blood beet is so deep purplish-red
that it may even remind one of Keats
words, "Deep-dyed as with the blood
of kings" The carrot is pure salmon
red, and adds it's bits of glow to our
soup. And then there is the bright
rose-red of the radish, the globular
variety of which is sometimes cut into
roses to grace dinner table. The red
peppers are appropriately of fiery
color. The yellows are no less rich.
Squashes delight in this as well as
all fanciful forms, showing all golden
effects from pale lemon-yellow to deep
burning orange. Along with these
are the ruddy pumpkin and the rich
buff of the ripe muskmeloR. AS to
the green products, there are all hugs
and shades, and in some, these are
marvelously variegated, as in the
blotched stripes of the citron melon
and the well-named snake watermelon;
also in the curiously netted stripes
of the large green squash. The whites
have their varieties, such as the opaque
white of turnips, sometimes half col
ored with red; the fiesh-like purity of
the parsnip; and the pearly luster of
green corn and white onion
The color is. of course, enhanced
by form, in which, for variety, the
squashes lead the garden host, with
round, lobed, pyriform, or with swan
like shapes. But what variety of
forms peculiar to each of the others
mentioned! And what fuilness of
form, as in the rotund, compact cab
bage, the oblate lobed tomato, and
the melon swelling out between it's
longitudinal constructions. In other
vegetables we have the charmingly
crimpled and crinkled leaves, and
some dissected into fringes and frills,
as in parsley and the exquisite mats
of "chicory salad" Utility alone does
not reign in the market garden; beauty
revels there in root and fruit and
smiles forth in the green grocer's dis
play. Indeed, the growing foliage only
might be arranged in pretty display
for landscape gardening-sa striped
leaf corn for center, the red-stemmed
and broad-leafed rhubarb surround
ing this, then the purple cabbage, next
the finely ffiaged parsnip, followed
by the red-topped beet, and fronted
with a border of bright yellow-greea
lettuce heads.