THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 85 



Walcheren, Pink Cape, Grange's Autumn, and Purple Cape. These 

 thirteen sorts are the very utmost I should recommend for a culti- 

 vator who has to supply broccolis at all seasons in great plenty. 



Where there is no occasion to grow them prodigally, I should 

 sow true Walcheren, Snow's Winter, and Grange's Jl^k'de several 

 times in April and May, and go on planting in succession, draw- 

 ing always the largest plants, and leaving a few at proper distances 

 in the seed-bed to flower. 



In the first week of June I sow Grange's again, and Early 

 Fenzance, and deal with these in the same manner, and I would 

 have heads for table nearly all the year round, Somers' Fartimdar 

 Late White, is a good sort to succeed the Walcherens, as it stands 

 still till spring is far advanced, and then makes a sudden start, and 

 comes in well during the early part, and in fact throughout the 

 month of May, to keep things going till cauliflowers are ready. It 

 is no use to hurry any broccoli into flower. It may be done by a 

 starving process, such as planting out on a hot soil with little 

 manure and no water ; but when they are forced into flower, they 

 are not worth having ; in fact, the longer they are on the ground, 

 provided they are doing well all the while, the finer they are in the 

 end. Therefore give them room enough. The strong-growing kinds 

 to come in late should be two to two and a half feet apart ; those to 

 stand the winter and flower in spring, fifteen to twenty inches apart. 

 In well-sheltered places, I should prefer not to heel them over, but 

 it is a good plan where they are likely to be exposed to cutting 

 winds. The way to do it is to open a trench on the north side of 

 every row, and then heel the plants over luith their heads to the north. 

 This prevents the too early action of the sun on their frozen leaves 

 in winter, which is more destructive than frost itself. As for club 

 and the black bott, I can only say that perpetual stirring and manur- 

 ing of the ground tends more to prevent their ravages than any nos- 

 trums. Two things we find of inestimable value in the growth of 

 broccoli, cauliflower, and, in fact, all the cabbage tribe — one is hot 

 lime laid on as soon as the ground is cleared, and at once diigin ; the 

 other is manure in great plenty, and in a condition of rankness ia 

 which most private gardeners would be afraid to use it. But 

 experience tells us that if rank manure is well dug in and mixed 

 with the soil, the brassica tribe are quite capable of taking the rank- 

 ness out of it without harm, and that rank manure is destructive of 

 vermin ; it, in fact, is a deadly poison to them. The black bott, or 

 larva of the crane-fly, never can carry on its beastly depredations at 

 the collar of the plant if there is plenty of strong dung in the soil; 

 it can work through soot easier ; and club is too much connected 

 with a slow starving growth in the seed-bed to be favoured by strong 

 manure. Market gardeners have no particular remedies against 

 vermin ; the reason they sufler but seldom from their ravages is that 

 they are too active for vermin to get the upper hand. Why, if I see 

 plants in a seed-bed falling over through being eaten through at the 

 collar, I have a lot of hoes put to work to scratch the ground every- 

 where. This exposes the bott to view, and the robins and thrushes 

 and sparrows make an end of them. 



