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LXXIX. On the Means of Preserving Broccoli in Winter. 

 By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. F. R. S. President. 



Read February 4, 1817. 



Eve r y person, who has at all paid attention to the effects 

 of frost in different situations in the same vicinity, must 

 have observed, that it is much more destructive in some 

 spots, than in others, which appear to be equally exposed 

 to its influence. My garden at Downton occupies one of 

 those unfortunate situations, where, owing to causes which 

 I cannot discover, the frost is severe and destructive, and in 

 the three first years of my residence there, not more than as 

 many plants of Broccoli survived the winter, and even these 

 were so much injured as to be scarcely fit to come to my 

 table. I was consequently led to endeavour to discover the 

 means of protecting my plants ; and I have in the last few 

 years so perfectly succeeded, that I have scarcely lost a 

 single plant. I first tried the effects of laying them in, as the 

 gardeners call digging up, and laying them horizontally in the 

 soil (as is frequently practised), in the beginning of Novem- 

 ber ; but the plants so treated, having had few roots in the 

 succeeding spring, vegetated but feebly, and consequently 

 the heads produced were small. In the last few years I 

 have adopted nearly the same mode of treatment, but at a 

 different season, and my success has been so perfect, that 

 I can most confidently recommend the method which I have 

 practised : and I am quite certain that my Broccoli plants 



