CAULIFLOWER. 175 



The cauliflower being tender, the young plants re- 

 quire protection in winter. For this purpose they are 

 sometimes pricked out in a warm situation at the foot 

 of a wall with a. southern exposure, where, in severe 

 weather, they are also covered with hoops and mats. 

 Perhaps a better method is to plant them thickly in 

 the ground, under a common hotbed frame, and to 

 secure them from cold by coverings, and from damp by 

 giving air in mild weather.* For a very early supply, 

 it is useful to be at the pains of potting a few scores of 

 plants ; these are to be kept under glass during winter, 

 and plunged out in spring, defending them with a 

 hand-glass, and watering them when needful. Some- 

 times, as in market-gardens, patches of three or four 

 plants are sheltered by hand-glasses throughout the 

 winter in the open border. It is advantageous to prick 

 out the spring-sown plants into some sheltered place, 

 before they be finally transplanted and committed to 

 the open ground in May. The later crop, the trans- 

 plantafion of which may take place at various times, 

 is treated like early cabbages. Cauliflower succeeds 

 best in a rich soil and warm situation. After planting, 



* During the severe and protracted snow-storm of 1838, Mr. 

 Robert Miller, market-gardener at Gorgie, was completely suc- 

 cessful in preserving his cauliflower plants in the open border, 

 by the simple expedient of heaping snow over them to the depth 

 of eighteen inches or two feet. Occasional slight thawings were 

 followed by intense frosts, when the cold was from 20° even to 

 10° Fahr. But the only effect was the glazing of the surface of 

 the snow with a thin coat of ice : the plants remained imbedded 

 below at an invariable temperature of 32°, which they could well 

 enough sustain, and they ran no risk from the expanding effects 

 of frcezin<r. 



