CAULIFLOWER 41 



lights. An old Cucumber bed scratched over and dusted with lime 

 makes a good wintering place for Cauliflowers. When all such places 

 are filled, any plants that remain may be planted on an open border 

 near a wall, and they may happen to pass through the winter and 

 prove useful. These border plants will be worth a little attention to 

 help them through, and one of the cleanest ways of shielding them 

 against frost will be to cover with empty pots and put a little dry 

 litter over. But a severe winter will make an end of them, do what 

 you may, and therefore autumn-sown Cauliflowers must be provided 

 with glass in some way to insure their safety, and only the surplus 

 stock should be put out to run the gauntlet. 



Those wintered under hand-lights need not be transplanted in 

 the spring. Possibly the plants at the corners may be crippled by frost, 

 in which case they must be removed, and the best plants will remain 

 to finish without disturbance. But all, or the chief part, of those 

 wintered in frames must be planted out as soon as the risk of severe 

 frost is past, and should have good cultivation. The plants in pots 

 may be turned out without hurting a fibre. Those in beds in frames 

 must be lifted with care, and it will be good practice to leave enough 

 in the bed to occupy it fairly, and to remove the lights and allow 

 them to finish there. They will turn in early and make a fine begin- 

 ning, and thus from one autumn sowing you will obtain two summer 

 plantations. 



The Cauliflower has been very materially improved within the 

 past few years, the varieties now in favour being hardier and hand- 

 somer than the older kinds, and somewhat quicker in attaining 

 maturity. Hence, where it is convenient to sow so early as January, 

 the autumn sowing may be dispensed with. Sutton's First Crop, sown 

 in January in heat and transplanted early, will produce small heads 

 by the end of May or beginning of June, and sown out of doors in 

 the middle of April will be fit to cut about the middle of July. There 

 is this advantage in quick cultivation, that while we shorten the time 

 and escape all the worry of the wintering, we are safer against but- 

 toning and bolting, which will sometimes occur through the plants 

 becoming too forward under glass, and receiving too great a check 

 when planted out. 



To succeed the First Crop sown in January or February there 

 is nothing better than Sutton's Magnum Bonum, which may be sown 

 in February and onwards, first under glass, and the later sowings on 

 a sheltered border. This, when well grown, has every quality of 

 an exhibition Cauliflower, and is first-rate on the table. Favourite, 



