Hints on Vegetable and Fruit- Farming. 13 



plants potatoes, scarlet runners, French beans, blue peas, beet, 

 marrows, cucumbers and summer lettuces." Market-gardeners 

 never lose a chance. Market-garden farmers are equally on the 

 look-out for a " catch crop," and farmers who may add vegetable- 

 growing to their business will do well to follow their example. 



Cauliflowers sometimes give most satisfactory returns, but 

 as they require protection during the winter, they cannot compete 

 on anything like equal terms with those grown in Cornwall, 

 France, and the Channel Islands. Occasionally there are 

 winters through which cauliflowers would live, but the risk is 

 too great to plant them on a large scale, therefore it is better 

 to get a supply of plants grown under glass, or in protected 

 places, and plant them out as early in the spring as possible. 

 Farmhouse-gardens in many respects are admirably suited for 

 rearing and protecting these plants, and indeed for producing 

 early cauliflowers, which in some seasons are worth almost their 

 weight in coppers and pay well for care. Cauliflowers must 

 have good land and a deal of manure, with considerable moisture. 

 In other respects they are cultivated in the same way as cabbages ; 

 the plants being reared in seed-beds and set out on the land 

 when the weather permits, from 24 by 18 inches to 24 by 24 

 inches apart, depending upon the quality of the soil. Mitchell's 

 Hardy Early, Early London — more delicate — and the Dwarf 

 Mammoth, Veitch's Autumn Giant and VValcheren, are good 

 sorts ; and it is best to arrange a succession of ^rts, so that 

 the supply may be continuous. 



Broccoli will bear ordinary winters, and should be sown so as 

 to ensure a proper succession of heads.* It may easily be arranged 

 that there should always be broccoli fit to cut. They are culti- 

 vated like cauliflowers, and set the same distance apart. The 

 best sorts are the Hardy White, Snow's Winter White, Adams's 

 Early, Grange's Early White, Early Penzance, and Leamington. 



A few acres of cauliflowers and broccoli might be most 

 advantageously grown upon farms having good land, and within 

 reasonable distance of a town or of a railway-station, as they 

 generally are most saleable commodities. They may be tried 

 at first in a small way, and their cultivation could be extended 

 if it was found that the surroundings were suitable and that they 

 were profitable. 



Brussels-sprouts — Chou de Bruxelles — are exceedingly 

 good greens to grow for winter use, and have a sweet flavour 

 after winter frosts. The habit of this is to produce many 



* Mr. Shirley Hibberd, in his ' Profitable Gardening,' says, " It is a mark of 

 good management if ttie gardener can cut broccoli or cauliflowers any day in the 

 year, and to do this requires that sort of headwork which, as Cowpor says, ' Fore- 

 casts the future wliolc.' " 



