ON THE CULTIVATION OF EARLY CAULIFLOWERS. 
231 
here it will be relevant to our subject to take a cursory glance of Mr. Luke Howard’s 
classification. 
The three primary forms are : 
1. The Cirrus or curl, fibrous or streak-cloud, is the least dense of the whole series ; 
it generally forms on a ground of a deep blue sky and threatens a change of weather. 
2. The Cumulus, heaped or mass-cloud. It is a prevailing cloud in the day time of 
all seasons, and is exceedingly beautiful when it presents its silvery tops tinted with sober 
grey, against the bright blue sky. Round, well formed cumuli indicate settled weather. 
Pure cumuli are the accompaniments of fine weather, and they generally disappear about 
sun-setting. 
3. The Status, haze or lay-cloud, is that extended haze or bed of vapour frequently seen 
in the valleys, permitting trees and tall objects to rise through it. If greatly and heavily 
extended, it constitutes fog. If it evaporate and vanish as the sun advances, particularly 
in and about harvest-time, the day will be fine ; if, on the contrary, it lingers on the sides 
of hills, and forms heavy masses of clouds, rain will speedily follow. 
The compound modifications are the Cirro-stratus, Cirro-cumulus, Cumulo-stratus , and 
Cumulo-cirrostratus, Nimbus or rain cloud. 
1. Cirro-stratus, the mackerel-cloud, a blending of cirrus with stratus, consisting of 
dense, greyish, longitudinal streaks, advancing like a shoal of fish ; it is often a prognostic 
of rain. 
2. Cirro-cumulus, or woolly fleeces, high in the air ; it forms a beautiful object, and is 
frequently a concomitant of fine weather. 
3. Cumulo-stratus. It is a grand massive cloud of evening when, rising from the 
horizon, its towering masses are lit up by the sun. The prognostic is threatening, and the 
result is frequently a storm, preceded by coruscations of lightning. 
4 Cumulo-cirrostratus, a blending of all the simple clouds ; it generally produces rain or 
storm, followed by a total suffusion, wherein all modifications are lost, and the fall of rain 
becomes continuous till the mass breaks up and disperses. 
ON THE CULTIVATION OF EARLY CAULIFLOWERS. 
By G. T. 
‘‘Of all the flowers in the garden,” Doctor Johnson is said to have observed, “ I like the 
Cauliflower and it is scarcely necessary to add that the learned Doctor’s preference for 
this somewhat delicate oleraceous vegetable has become an universal one ; not the least 
conspicuous evidence of which consists in the hundreds of acres around the Metropolis, 
that are annually overspread with hand-glasses for the winter protection and spring 
advancement of Cauliflowers — the glasses employed glittering in the sunbeams like fields 
of crystal. In the gardens of the noble and affluent of the land, where every luxury that 
scientific horticulture and the gardener’s skill can supply must be sought for and 
obtained, the production of Cauliflowers very early in the season, when the winter produce 
of its congener, the brocoli, has become exhausted, is always an especial desideratum. In 
the methods mostly adopted for the obtainment of Cauliflowers early, there is but little 
dissimilarity practised, the general rule being to sow for the earliest or handglass crop in 
August in a favourable situation in the open ground ; and then, when the seedlings have 
developed a few “ rough leaves,” to transplant the most vigorous plants to a sunny, sheltered 
border, or beneath frames or handglasses, where they are to remain ; and perhaps no 
better plan than this for the main summer supply can be adopted ; but for the earliest 
Cauliflowers, experience has satified me that it is not a good plan to sow so early in the 
season ; as by sowing in August, the plants attain a degree of luxuriance which, in case of 
an exceedingly mild winter, ultimately result in a rank plethoric habit highly injurious to 
them, when they come to experience the additional stimuli derived from cultivation under 
