CAULIFLOWER SEED. Ill 



under date of March 3d, 1891, that he raised 60 

 pounds of seed of the Boston Market from 500 

 plants, where from the same number of plants of the 

 Snowball and Extra Early Erfurt, grown under pre- 

 cisely the same conditions, he obtained less than a 

 great spoonful. The seed was raised, on an island 

 used expressly for that purpose. 



It is a custom in England and Holland, where 

 the season is too short for the seed to ripen per- 

 fectly, to diminish the number of seed- stalks on a 

 plant by cutting out the centre of the head. The 

 flower-stalks require to be supported by stakes, and 

 when the seed is nearly mature, to be guarded from 

 birds. A plaster cat is recommended as a good 

 scare -crow, especially if its position is changed 

 every few days, so that the birds will continue to 

 think that it is alive. 



Cauliflower seed, as is well known, is smaller and 

 inferior in appearance to cabbage seed, and always 

 contains a considerable proportion, which is 

 shrunken and worthless. This poor seed is re- 

 moved from the crop as much as possible before it 

 is sold. This shrunken condition arises from the 

 fact that a large share of the flowers fail to set, and 

 many of the pods only partly fill. Shrunken seed 

 is no indication of inferiority of variety, in fact 

 rather otherwise, for the most compact heads, being 

 the most deformed from a structural point of view, 



