616 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part II L 



3.578. Culture. Sow in March, and pbnt out at three feet distance. When in good ground, it will pro- 

 duce very fine heads, perfectly white, throughout the months of April and May of the following year. 



3579. Late dwarf close-headed purple broccoli. This is the latest purple broccoli, being in perfection 

 throughout April and the greatest part of May. The plants seldom rise above a foot in height ; the 

 flower at first shows small and green, but soon enlarges, and changes to a close, conical, purple head ; the 

 leaves are short and small, dark-green, with white veins, much sinuated, deeply indented, and forming a 

 regular radius round the flower, giving the whole plant a singular and beautiful appearance. 



3580. Culture. The seed should be sown in April, and the plants must stand from one foot and a half 

 to two feet apart. 



3581. Latest green, or Iberian, or Danish broccoli. This is the latest and hardiest of all the broccolis, for 

 the severest winters will not destroy it. The leaves are much undulated and indented, narrow and long, 

 with a tinge of purple color in the stems. 



3582. Culture. If sown towards the end of April, it will produce large, compact, green heads during the 

 whole succeeding May. Two feet distance is sufficient for the plants. 



3583. General obsei vaiions on the culture of broccoli. All the sorts are raised from seed ; 

 and for a bed four feet in width by ten feet, Abercrombie says, one ounce of seed 

 is sufficient. 



3584. Seed-bed. Ronalds, in the paper above quoted, directs the seed-beds to be pre- 

 pared of rich mould, well dug, and if dry, watered the evening before sowing. The 

 seeds must be thinly sown, and the beds should be covered with mats or litter till the 

 plants appear, the covering may then be removed, and the plants watered occasionally as 

 the state of the we-ather req\iires ; should that continue very dry, the best method is to 

 transplant, when the plants are about two or three inches high, into other beds about four 

 inches asunder. Being several times refreshed by sprinklings of water, they will, in a 

 fortnight or three weeks, be sufficiently strong for a second remove. This mode offers 

 some advantage in giving time to clear off any crops of peas, &c. thereby obtaining 

 ground which could not otherwise be conveniently had at the first season of planting out. 

 The four first sorts on the list, which I consider as congeners, should be only once trans- 

 planted, as the check their removal occasions is apt to produce the heads prematurely, 

 which, in that case, will be small, and indifferent in quality. If the season is showery, 

 it will be needful to cover the beds as soon as sown with netting, to keep off the birds, 

 also to sprinkle the plants when they appear with lime-water, or to strew on them fresh - 

 slacked lime, to destroy the slugs. In this case, when the plants are six or eight 

 inches high, they may be planted at once at the distances recommended for each sort. 



3585. Insects and diseases. In old gardens, infested, as is often the case, with an in- 

 sect which in summer insinuates itself into the roots of all the brassica tribe, and causes 

 a disease usually called the club, trenching the ground deep enough to bring up four 

 or six inches of fresh undisturbed loam or earth, will probably bury the insects too 

 deep for mischief, and provide fresh ground for the benefit of the plants. In gardens 

 much exhausted by reiterated cropping, if this mode cannot be adopted, a good quantity 

 of fresh loam from a common or field, dug in, would materially improve the broccoli, 

 and be of lasting use to future crops. Broccoli, in general, succeeds best in a fresh loamy 

 soil, where it comes, I think, more true in kind, and is hardier, without dung ; but if this 

 situation cannot be had, deep digging, with plenty of manure, is the only remaining al- 

 ternative to procure good crops. I believe soap-ashes, dug into the ground in consider- 

 able quantities, to be a good preservative from the club ; and if the roots of the plants, 

 just previously to planting, are dipped and stirred well about in mud of soap-ashes with 

 water, its adherence will, in a great measure, preserve them from attack ; perhaps a mix- 

 ture of stronger ingredients, such as soot, sulphur-vivum, tobacco, &c. would be still bet- 

 ter. {Hort. Trans, vol. iii.) 



3586. Wood, a writer in the Caledonian Horticultural Memoirs, says he has paid a 

 considerable degree of attention to the culture of broccoli, and has made considerable 

 progress therein. He finds that manuring with a compound of sea-weed and horse-dung 

 produced the largest and finest heads he had seen during a practice of fifty-four years. 



3587. Cidture ivithoiit transplanting, M'Leod grows cape broccoli in a very superior manner without 

 transi)lanting. In the end of May, after having prepared the ground, he treads it firm, and by the assist- 

 ance of a line, sows his seeds in rows two feet apart, dropping three or four seeds into holes two feet dis- 

 tance from each other in the row. When the seeds vegetate, he destroys all except the strongest, which 

 are protected from the fly, by sprinkling a little soot over the ground ; as the plants advance they are 

 frequently flat-hoed until they bear their flowers ; they are once earthed up, during their growth. A 

 specimen of the broccoli thus grown was exhibited to the Horticultural Society ; the head was compact and 

 handsome, measuring two feet nine inches in circumference, and weighing, when divested of its leaves 

 and stalk, three pounds ; the largest of its leaves was upwards of two feet long. M'Leod adopts the same 

 mode in the cultivation of spring-sown cauliflowers, lettuces, and almost all other vegetables, avoiding 

 transplanting as much as possible. {Hort, Trans. voL iv. 559.) 



3588. Preserving broccoli during winter. Ronalds observes, that, though broccolis come larger and finer 

 on the spot where they are planted, yet it is prudent to take up a part of the later " sorts in the beginning 

 of November, disturbing the roots as little as possible, and lay them in slopingly, with their heads towards 

 the north, only a few inches above the ground, and about eighteen inches asunder. By this means, the 

 crown of the plant lying low, is soon covered and protected by the snow, which generally falls previously 

 to long and severe frosts ; the plant is also rendered tougher in fibre, and hardier^by the check received 

 in this last removal." 



3589. Knight, having practised laying in his broccoli-plants in November in the usual way, found but 

 small heads produced from them in the succeeding spring ; till he tried trenching or laying them in in the 

 month of September, and " so low as that the centre of the stem at the top of each plant was level with 

 the surface of thje ground.^ The plants are^watered, roots arc properly emitted, and the earth drawrk 



