286 
ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE CAULIFLOWER. 
spring. The first should be raised on a little heat, or under hand¬ 
glasses, close to a south wall, in the month of February, and afterwards 
pricked out in a cold frame, to be nursed till they are of sufficient size, 
and until the season serves for planting them out for good. These, 
with some of the underlings of the autumn sowings, will come in after 
the spring crop. The second sowing is made about the twenty-fifth of 
April. These are commonly called Michaelmas cauliflowers, and 
come in about that holiday; and last till the frost destroys them. 
But as many flowers are in prime order in November, when sharp frosts 
may be expected, it is usual to secure all the best by digging them up, 
trimming off the greater part of the outside leaves, and hanging them by 
the heels in a warm shed or dry cellar, or stowing them upright and 
close together in dry earth in a spare hotbed frame, or pit, where they 
may be safe from frost and damp. In this way cauliflowers may be 
kept good, very often till February. Some writers advise the heads 
intended to be stored in winter, to be buried in tubs, or boxes, of pure 
peat-earth; that is, such as is as free from sand or other earthy 
particles as possible—the antiseptic qualities of which preserve the 
heads good for a long time, if kept excluded from air. They, however, 
require to be thoroughly washed before they are sent to the kitchen. 
There are two varieties of cauliflower in cultivation, namely, the early 
and the late. The first is the most delicate, the second somewhat more 
hardy. Both require similar treatment, and both arrive at the greatest 
size in the richest soil. At genteel tables the flowers are considered in 
the greatest perfection when they measure about three or four inches 
over; because then they are both very firm, and delicately white. But 
a much larger size is required in French cookery, when a whole single 
flower is intended to form an entire and principal dish. 
In saving seed, the whitest, earliest, and firmest heads should 
be chosen : and when the head begins to open, a portion of the branches 
should be thinned out, to give room and more strength to those which 
are left to mature seed. In the northern counties of England and Scot- 
land, the seeds do not ripen abundantly, unless the plants are placed 
close to a south wall, and the branched head fastened close up to it by 
nails and shreds. No seed is easier adulterated than that of the cauli¬ 
flower, if any other congenerous plant be near and in flower at the same 
time. This, however, is a fact so well known that it can hardly be 
forgotten by the seed-grower. 
