126 



THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap. 



fore the time for taking the carrots up ; but, that is 

 of no consequence. These shoots can be cut off 

 before the carrots be put away for winter. Carrots 

 will transplant Vike Beets ; but, they grow still more 

 forked than the Beet in this case. They do, how- 

 ever, grow large and heavy in this way, I have 

 had some weigh more than three pounds. 



209. CAULIFLOWER.— It is not without some 

 difficulty, that this plant is brought to perfection in 

 any country, where the frost is severe in winter, 

 and especially where the summers are as hot as 

 they are in every part of the United States. Still 

 it may be brought to perfection.— It is a cabbage, 

 and the French call it the flower-cabbage. Its 

 head is a lump of rich pulp, instead of being, as a 

 cabbage-head is, a parcel of leaves folding in to- 

 wards a centre, and lapping over each other. The 

 Cauliflower is an annual plant. It blows, and ri- 

 pens its seed, during the year that it is sown ; and, 

 in fact, the part which is eaten is not, as in the cab- 

 bage, a lump of leaves, but the seed stalks, pods, 

 and blossoms, in their embryo and compact state, 

 before they expand. — It is the same with. Brocoli. — 

 Cauliflowers may be had to eat in the fall, or in the 

 spring. The last is the most difficult to accom- 

 plish ; and I will, therefore, treat first of the means 

 of accomplishing that. — To have Cauliflowers to 

 eat in the spring, that is to say, in June, you must 

 sow them in the fall ; for, they will have a certain 

 age before their heads will come. Yet, they are 

 very tender. They will not endure a South of 

 England winter without a covering, occasionally at 

 least, of some sort; and the covering is, almost al- 

 ways, glass, either on frames or in a hand-light. 

 So that, to keep them through an American winter, 

 there must not only be ^lass, but that glass (except 



