CAULIFLOWER. 79 



to shrink or turn light; and to leave it too long in 

 the field is to invite night frosts to kill the germi- 

 nating po^wer, or at least weaken it. Frosts fre- 

 quently occur in September, but to have the seed 

 perfectly developed and matured it should remain in 

 the field uncut until about October 10. 



To prevent injury from this cause it sometimes 

 becomes necessary to start lines of fire, from turf 

 and gas tar, or anything not too expensive or difficult 

 to obtain, that will cause a vast amount of smoke; 

 these fires are started on the windward side of the 

 field, and. if the work is well done, will save the crop. 



This completes the growing of the crop. When 

 the stalks are cut they are hung up in open sheds for 

 a few weeks, so that the seeds may draw as much 

 nutriment as possible from the stalks, get well colored 

 and dry enough for threshing out. In our rare 

 atmosphere seeds of similar character do not require 

 so much attention, but will ripen or "make" thor- 

 oughly in the field after having been cut two or 

 three days. 



Thus it can be readily seen that cauliflower seed 

 cannot be produced in Denmark even, excepting at 

 great cost, and no one grower ever produces a large 

 quantity. The farms there are all small, the produc- 

 tion entailing the hardest labor, and what we would 

 consider a small amount a Danish farmer would 

 regard as a heavy crop. Some of the largest dealers 

 have their local agents there look out most carefully 

 for the best stocks. 



We are often asked if the growing of cauli- 

 flower seed cannot be made a profitable industry in 

 this country ; to which we reply, No, most emphati- 

 cally, on the Atlantic coast. On the northern Pacific 



