HOW TO GROW CABBAGE AND CAULIFLOWER. 157 



or fruit makes such an advance in earliness and quality 

 as this "Snowball" Cauliflower, and we have much 

 satisfaction in the knowledge that we were the first to 

 bring it into cultivation, about five years ago. It is now 

 grown to almost the entire exclusion of all other early 

 kinds of Cauliflower in this country, and hundreds have 

 succeeded, both North and South, in raising a crop from 

 this variety, who had previously completely failed with 

 all other kinds. 



In Cauliflowers, as in Cabbages, it is folly to attempt 

 the experiment of many kinds. Long experience has 

 taught us that two or three of each, for early and second 

 early, are all sufficient. Although our seed catalogues 

 enumerate scores of kinds, gardeners, who know what 

 they are about, fight shy of all except those whose merit 

 has been proved beyond any question of a doubt. For 

 this reason, we only give the names of such as we know 

 to be the best. 



There are few vegetables that we cultivate that are so 

 eccentric in their modes of development as the Cauli- 

 flower, and many market gardeners have, to their sorrow, 

 lost entire crops by experimenting here with untried 

 kinds. One of our best New Jersey market gardeners 

 being over in England a few years ago, procured seed of 

 a variety of Cauliflower that was exclusively used as the 

 best for the London market. To be safe he got stock of 

 it from three different market gardeners, the seed being 

 raised from the stock they were then marketing. He 

 sowed the seed, and planted out about an equal number 

 of plants of each, together with a lot of Snowball. All 

 were sown and planted exactly alike. The " London 

 Market " grew neany three feet high, but did not form 

 one head in twenty, and these were late, while from the 

 "Snowball" lot nearly every head was marketable, 



