S18 GARDEN MANAGEMENT. 



are cut up they are put into barrels where oil has lately been kept, and then 

 stopped up close, that no air can come to them. 



883. This important family of vegetables are biennial, triennial, and nearly 

 perennial in some of the varieties. They may be divided into — 



1. The cabbages proper, which have heads formed of the inner leaves 



growing close and compactly round the stem, which are thus blanched 

 into a whitish yellow by the outer leaves. 



2. Eed, or Milan cabbage, which grows in the same form, except in 



colour. 



3. Savoys, distinguished by their curly wrinkled leaves, but retaining 



the tendency to form a her.d. 



4. Brussels sprouts, producing the sprouts, or edible part, from the stem 



in small heads, like very young cabbages. 



5. Borecole, of which there are many varieties, has a large open head 



with large curling leaves. 



6. Cauliflower and broccoli, in which the flower-buds form a close fleshy 



head of a delicate yellowish-white, for which both are cultivated. 



884. Of the first of these there are many vai-ieties, some of them valuable 

 for their precocity, which adapts them for early spring cultivation ; others for 

 more enduring qualities. They are all propagated by seed sown for main 

 crops twice a year, — namely, in April, for planting out in June and July, for 

 autumn and winter use ; and in August and September, for spring use ; but 

 it is usual to make sowings of smaller quantities every month for succession. 



885. The Romans propagated the Brassica by seeds and cuttings, by which 

 choice varieties may be perpetuated with greater certainty than from seed. 

 This is done by slipping off the sprouts, which all the tribe produce on the 

 stem, when about four inches long ; and after exposing it to the air for a day 

 or two to cauterize the wound, it is dipped in caustic hme, and planted where 

 it is to grow. Phny tells us they are fittest for planting or for eating when the 

 sprout has six leaves, 



886. The Callage. — The seed is sown on beds four feet wide, and long in 

 proportion to the sowing, — a bed 4 feet by 20 will take 2 oz. of seed. 

 Cover the seed to an eighth or a quarter of an inch with rich light soil, and 

 rake it in : the after-cultivation will be gathered from the calendars. They 

 require a rich retentive soil. The whole ti*ibe are improved by early transplant- 

 ing when about two inches in height. The young plants should be removed 

 into nursery-beds thoroughly prepared by digging and manuring, and, if dry, 

 by watering, where they are planted four or five inches apart. Here the plants 

 remain till well rooted. Their next remove is usually to the place where 

 they are pennanently to grow ; but they will be rather improved than other- 

 wise by an intermediate shifc to a second nursery-bed. 



887. In final planting out, the ground being trenched and well manured, a 

 drill is drawn, three inches deep, at a distance proportioned to the size and 

 habit of growth of the variety ; the small or early dwarfs at 12 or 15 

 inches apart in the rows, the larger sorts, as Vanack, at 18 inches. 



