28 
AMERICAN KITCHEN GARDENER. 
out finally in April, it would be the most certain method of obtaining largg 
and early flowers. 77 
Insects and diseases. —“ In old gardens, infested, as e often the case, with 
an insect which in summer insinuates itself into the roots of all the brassica 
tribe, and causes the disease called the club, trenching the ground deep enough 
to bring up four or six inches of undisturbed loam or earth, will probably 
bury the insects too deep for mischief, and provide fresh ground for the 
benefit of the plants. In gardens much exhausted by reiterated croppings, if 
this mode cannot be adopted, a good quantity of fresh loam from a common 
field, dug in, would materially improve the broccoli, and be of lasting use in 
future crops. Broccoli, in general, succeeds best in a fresh, loamy soil, 
where it comes, I think, mere true in kind, and is hardier without dung; 
but if this situation cannot be had, deep digging, with plenty of manure, is 
the only remaining alternative to produce good crops. I believe soap ashes, 
dug into the ground in considerable quantities, to be a good preservative 
from the club; and if the roots of the plants, just previously to planting, are 
dipped and stirred well about in mud of soap ashes with water, its adherence 
will, in a great measure, preserve them from attack; perhaps a mixture of 
stronger ingredients, such as soot, sulphur, tobacco, &c. would be still bet¬ 
ter.^— Hort. Trans . vol. iii.— See Cabbage. 
Wood, a writer in the Caledonian Horticultural Memoirs , says, he paid a 
considerable degree of attention to the culture of broccoli, and has made con¬ 
siderable progress therein. He found that manuring with a compound of 
sea-weed and horse-dung produced the largest and finest heads he had seen 
for many years. 
Culture without transplanting. — u M‘Leod grows cape broccoli, in a very 
superior manner, without transplanting. In the end of May, after having 
prepared the ground, he treads it firm, and, by the assistance of a line, sows 
his seed in rows two feet apart, dropping three or lour seeds into holes two 
feet distant from each other in the row. When the seeds vegetate, he de¬ 
stroys all except the strongest, which are protected from the fly by sprink¬ 
ling a little soot over the ground ; as the plants advance they are frequently 
flat hoed until they bear their flowers; they are once earthed up, during 
their growth. A specimen of broccoli, thus grown, was exhibited to the 
Horticultural Society; the head was compact and handsome, measuring two 
feet nine inches in circumference, and weighing when divested of its leaves 
and stalks, three pounds; the largest of its leaves was upwards of two feet 
’.ong. M‘Leod adopts the same mode in the cultivation of spring-sown cauli¬ 
flowers, lettuces, and almost all other vegetables, avoiding transplanting as 
much as possible. 77 — Hort. Trans, vol. iv, p. 559. 
To save seed. —Wood, already mentioned, selects the largest, best formed, 
and finest heads, taking particular care that no foliage appears on the surface 
of the head' ; these he marks, and, in April, lays them by the heels in a 
