CULTURE OP EARLY PURPLE BROCOLI. g05 



fable in proportion as they approach to a pale or white 

 colour, such varieties will undoubtedly be preferable to 

 purple ones, if they turn out equally hardy: nor are we to 

 despair of raising them, by patience and perseverance in se- 

 lecting the largest and whitest specimens of the common 

 brocoli for seed. 



All attempts of this kind however demand both a long Difficulties ia 

 time, and no trifling expense ; nor can they be easily pro- *^e ?««"»'• 

 aecuted, except in the insulated grounds of those gentle- 

 men, whose liberality, like that of my master, rivals their 

 extensive possessions : for, out of a great number of plants 

 set apart for seed, perhaps not even one may answer our 

 wishes; and if a* brisk gale of wind, or wandering bees, 

 bring the pollen of any other variety to their flowers, the 

 progeny, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, will be 

 deteriorated instead of improved, and in no case prove the 

 identical variety sown. 



The brocoli, of which I am now emboldened to offer Some Excelknt few- 

 account to the Horticultural Society, is reported to have *^'' ®^* ^^^^^ 

 been introduced from the Cape of Good Hope, by the Hon. 

 Marmaduke Dawnay, and first cultivated in Surry, where 

 it is called the early Cape brocoli. Packets of seed, first 

 sent here from Itah^, which appear to me to have produced 

 the same variety, have also been sold for two seasons by Mr. 

 Grange, fruiterer, in Covent Garden and Piccadilly : it 

 may therefore easily be obtained, and our principal care 

 now must be to preserve it in its present magnitude and 

 excellence. 



My method of treating it is as follows. Three crops are Time of sow- 

 sown annually: the first between the 12th and )8th of ">S "^^^ ««««**' 

 April : a second between the 18th and 24th of May : the 

 third between the ipth and 25th of August: these suc- 

 cessive crops supply the family from September till the end 

 of May. 



•The result of an action for damages brought in Westminster Hal! 

 more than a century ago, against an innocent but unfortunate gardener, 

 for selling cauliflower seeds, which only p:joduced long-leaved cabbages^ 

 has been stamped with immortality by the pen of Linneus, in his cele- 

 brated treatise on the sexes of plants, the Sponsalia Plantarum, and con- 

 firms this remark of the author's very forcibly. Seer, 



The 



