306 On Preserving Broccoli in Winter. 



have been fully exposed, even after the most favourable 

 winter : and the weight and value of the head of Broccoli will 

 depend much more upon the vigour of the plant than upon 

 the diameter acquired by the stalk in the preceding autumn. 



I usually sow the seeds of Broccoli for this mode of 

 management about the end of April ; but where it is wished 

 to have the heads very large, a somewhat earlier period 

 would probably be advantageous ; and attention must of 

 course be paid to the peculiar habits of each variety. 



The Siberian, or hardy sprouting kinds of Broccoli, being 

 more excitable, that is more easily made to vegetate during 

 winter, than other kinds, should not be laid in till the first 

 week of October; and as plants of these varieties produce 

 the best formed heads in spring, when the seed has been 

 sowed rather late in the preceding summer, I rarely order 

 it to be sowed before the last week in May, or first week in 

 June ; and as such plants require but a small space, they 

 are always planted in my garden within fourteen or fifteen 

 inches of each other. 



During the short but severe frost, which occurred in 

 February, last year, the thermometer, in one of the mornings, 

 was at 3°, and probably had been two or three degrees 

 lower during the night; and this intense cold was suc- 

 ceeded by a very bright, and, for the season of the year, 

 rather warm day ; yet not a single plant of the later kinds 

 of Broccoli was further injured than by the loss of a small 

 part of the extremities of a few of its leaves, and the crop 

 proved in every respect most excellent and abundant. 



