THE GROWING OF PLANTS. 



BY S. WEBBER, M. D. 



Some months since, I noticed an inquiry as to what would 

 make cabbages form heads. I thought I would reply to it; 

 but a pressure of other occupations kept me busy at the 

 time, so that I did not do so, though the subject has not 

 been forgotten. I have been troubled much at times with 

 the same untowardness on the part of my cabbages, and 

 cauliflowers as well as broccoli, to form their appropriate 

 heads. Conversing on the subject some two or three years 

 ago with a friend fond of horticulture, he imformed me that 

 some one, of much practical esperience in the raising of 

 such vegetables, told him, that the way to insure the head- 

 ing was to transplant them twice, the second transplanting 

 to take place at a moderate interval of time after the first. 

 The very next year, another friend, who had been bringing 

 forward many ordinary garden vegetables in a hot bed, 

 sent me a number of well grown plants, both of cauliflowers 

 and cabbages, when those I had planted were scarcely 

 above ground. At the time I received them, I had not pre- 

 pared the ground destined for the reception of such vege- 

 tables, and was too busy with other things to do so forth- 

 with. I accordingly struck the end of a hoe-blade into a 

 soft well prepared border, and turning the handle down so 

 as to leave a sufficient cavity, put the cabbages in, in a 

 bunch as I received them. 1 did the same with the cauli- 

 flowers, and then left them to their fate. About ten days 



