70 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
lifted, and showery weather should be selected for the operation, or 
lacking rain, the plants should be shaded for a time, and regularly 
watered. A poor soil will not produce this vegetable in a state to 
be worth gathering ; therefore, prepare for the plantation a deeply 
dug and well-manured plot. Our mode of procedure is to plant 
potatoes in rows four feet apart, and put out the Brussels sprouts 
between them two feet apart in the row. When the potatoes are 
taken up, the sprouts have the full breadth of four feet, and they 
very soon afterwards nearly meet across the rows, and it may be 
understood by that fact that we obtain our supplies of buttons from 
gigantic plants. 
But we can do better than this, and now proceed to describe the 
better way. We make a sowing of seed in the first week of August, 
and as soon as possible thin the plants to three or four inches apart, 
and leave them to stand the winter. As early in March as weather 
will permit, we transplant them into the potato plot on a simi- 
larly good piece of ground in rows three or four feet apart, and they 
soon make a tremendous growth, and supply fine buttons in enor- 
mous quantity from the end of August until the month of March 
following. This practice answers perfectly on our cold damp soil, 
five miles north from London, and we take care to provide for the 
seed-bed a sheltered nook on the highest part of the ground. Were 
we located north of the Trent, we should sow in July to stand 
the winter in the open, and again in August for a few hundred 
plants, to be aided with some cheap protection. Whatever con- 
duces to the early and luxuriant growth of this useful vegetable 
must he adopted as profitable, unless it is a very extravagant affair 
indeed. We expect to find our plants four feet high, and literally 
studded with round buttons the size of a small orange some time in 
the autumn, proportionate to the time at which the seed was sown. 
Now, perhaps the reader would like to know what sort we grow, 
for there are many in the market, if we take the trade catalogues for 
gospel. Well, we always order “imported seed,” and find that 
other so-called improvements are either no better or some degree 
worse. There are other valuable varieties of sprouts, such as the 
Teather-stemmed savoy, the Dalmeny sprouts, etc., etc. ; but of 
Brussels sprouts there is but one variety, and genuiue imported 
seed is the best. 
One word more. The proper way to appropriate the plant is to 
remove the sprouts from the stem as soon as they are fully grown, 
and before they begin to expand. Continue this practice all through 
the piece from first to last, and when it appears that no more good 
buttons are coming, take the top cabbages, and you will find them a 
delicious vegetable, if nicely cooked. But if you take the top cab- 
bage first, you will have very few good sprouts, and indeed what 
can you expect from the plants after they have lost their heads ? 
SpeoutikCt Beoccoli. — This may be grown in precisely the 
same way as recommended for Brussels sprouts. If not well grown, 
it is simply unprofitable, but when w'ell done is a most valuable 
vegetable, because it comes into use at a time when greenmeat is 
scarce. There are several sorts in the market, but only one is really 
