CAULIFLOWER. 63 



beds, and covering them with mats ; or by planting 

 them close under a south wall, and occasionally co- 

 vering them with some dry litter in hard weather. 



Previously to planting out the cauliflowers 

 wintered in frames, the plants under the hand- 

 glasses should be looked over, and if there is a de- 

 ficiency of less than two, occasioned either by their 

 prematurely running to flower or other causes, this 

 deficiency should be made up with the strongest 

 and best plants in the frames, which if carefully 

 raised with the point of a trowel, to preserve the 

 fibres of the roots, will receive but little check in 

 their removal, arid quickly succeed the more per- 

 manent plants. 



In the spring culture of the plants under hand- 

 glasses, they must be thinned out, and one or two 

 stout plants left to each glass ; the mould should be 

 stirred up, and a little drawn up round their stems, 

 and as the plants advance in growth, the earth 

 should be formed into a sort of basin under each 

 glass, the better to contain the necessary waterings 

 both before and after the glasses are entirely re- 

 moved. In proportion to the advanced growth of 

 the plants, the benefit of the full air in mild days, 

 and that of warm showers, by occasionally setting 

 the glasses wholly off, must not be omitted, always 

 taking care to defend them during the night, and in 

 cold rains or boisterous weather. When the weather 

 becomes warm, and the plants are grown too large 

 for the glasses, they should then, by degrees, be 

 fully exposed night and day, so that by the latter 

 end of April the glasses may altogether be discon- 

 tinued. At this period, if the weather is hot and 



