BRUSSELS SPROUTS * 
Brussels sprouts are grown throughout the eastern end of Long 
Island, covering much the same section as cauliflower; but the in- 
dustry is centered about Orient, at the extreme end of the Island. 
Cauliflower was once largely planted near Orient, and the soil 
appears to be quite as well adapted to the crop as farther west; 
but it has proved impossible, perhaps because of fogs, to grow as 
good cauliflowers here as about Southold and to the west, hence 
the growers have abandoned this crop for sprouts. Equally good 
sprouts can be raised west of Southold, but cauliflowers are deemed 
more profitable, and the industry is better organized. 
Sprouts are grown on the same soils and sites as cauliflower, and 
for discussion of these topics the reader is referred to the pre 
ceding article on Cauliflower. 
HISTORY 
The first sprout seed sown in Orient was brought there by 
Captain Smith Dewey, a commission man who was a regular buyer 
at the east end of the Island, from New York in 1876. He se- 
eured an ounce of seed imported from Belgium by Mr. W. G. 
Thrig, a New York commission man, and divided it equally be- 
tween Mr. George W. Hallock and Mr. John Henry Youngs. 
Mr. Hallock discontinued the crop after one year, but Mr. Youngs 
has grown it uninterruptedly to the present time, though continu- 
ous and careful selection has so improved the stock that it now 
has little resemblance to the original. 
The plants first raised were about three feet in height, or nearly 
twice that of the present strain, and had larger, though very firm, 
sprouts. It was customary in the early days to plant sprouts early, 
and this no doubt partly accounts for the difference in height. 
Brussels sprouts were all but unknown on the New York market 
in the seventies, and Mr. Ihrig, who handled the slender Long 
Island product, found it slow work to build up a trade in them. 
Among his best customers in those days were Tom Thumb and 
his wife of Barnum’s Museum, at Ann Street and Broadway, 
* Reprint from Cornell Experiment Station Bulletin No. 292. 
[1449] 
