CAULIS. 
oughly rotten dung; and must be protected with 
a frame or glasses. The seed must be deposited 
at the depth of a quarter of an inch; water, if 
requisite, must be given; and protection from 
hot sunshine must be afforded by a mat-shading. 
In the latter part of September, the seedlings, if 
their leaves be an inch broad, must be pricked 
out into a similar situation and with similar pro- 
tection to the seedbed; at the end of October or 
beginning of November, the strongest of the 
plants may be transplanted in little clusters un- 
der handglasses; and in the end of February or 
the beginning of March, others may be trans- 
planted from the frames to the handglasses, and 
the strongest under the handglasses may be placed 
in the open ground, with protection simply from 
a south wall or from mats, two plants being left 
under each handglass; and about the end of 
April, or the beginning of May, all protection of 
even the most tender and backward may cease. 
All transplantings, and specially those to the 
open ground, must be carefully and cautiously 
effected, without damage to the roots, and with 
as large a quantity as possible of adhering soil ; 
all the plants, in the various stages and situa- 
tions of their growth, ought to have no more 
protection than is merely sufficient to prevent 
_ damage from cold,—the least protected plants 
being always healthier, and producing larger 
heads, than those which are much protected; and 
the plants beneath handglasses should have soil 
drawn up about their stems, and should be kept 
uncovered during the daytime of all compara- 
tively mild weather, and, when they ascend to 
the top of the glasses, should be encircled with a 
zone of soil four or five inches high, impenetrable 
to the frost, and forming a basis on which the 
glasses may rest so as to afford ample space for 
further growth. The best seed is obtained from 
select plants of the winter-standing crop. 
CAULIS. The culm of a grass, the stem of an 
herb, or the trunk of a tree. A caulis is defined 
by Jungius to be the part of a plant which rises 
single above the earth, and from which the leaves 
or little branches put forth; and by Miller to be 
“the upper part of a plant stretched forth to an 
height, so that the fore parts differ not from the 
hind, nor the right from the left.” <A frequent 
specific name in modern botanical nomenclature 
is acaulis, denoting the species so designated to 
be stemless ; and a common comprehensive name 
in old botanical language was cauliferous, denot- 
ing all such plants as have true stems. The 
name cauliflower, botanically cauliflora, signifies 
‘ flowering-stem.’ 
CAUSTIC. A substance which corrodes, burns, 
or otherwise destroys any exterior part of the 
animal frame to which it is applied. The most 
powerful caustic, though rather improperly term- 
ed one, is the cautery or red-hot iron. Some of 
the stronger caustics, in the proper sense of the 
word, are soda, potash, nitrous acid, and vitriol ; 
and some of the milder are red precipitate, sul- 
749 
CEANOTHUS. 
phate of copper, verdigris, and burnt alum, The 
most convenient solid caustic is nitrate of silver, 
in the form of mimic cylinders, and under the 
well-known popular name of lunar caustic.—The 
milder caustics are useful in bringing obstinate 
ulcers into a healing condition; and the stronger 
caustics are employed to destroy fungous flesh, 
and other irretrievably diseased portions of the 
body. The nitric acid in lunar caustic appears 
to be the agent in destroying the animal texture ; 
and a black stain which results from the applica- 
tion of this substance, seems to be occasioned by 
the separation of oxide of silver. Lunar caustic 
is the basis of indelible ink for marking linen, 
and is sometimes used for giving a black colour 
to red or grey hair. 
CAUTERY. A searing iron which farriers use 
red-hot, or rather white-hot, for destroying fun- 
gous flesh and other irretrievably diseased exte- 
rior parts of animal texture. 
CAWL, or Omentum. A broad and fatty mem- 
brane of sheep, cattle, and horses. It is formed 
from the peritoneum, particularly from those por- 
tions of it which are reflected from the paunch. 
In cattle, it covers the four stomachs and part of 
the intestines, and seems to support the latter, 
and to protect them from being injured by the 
various motions of the body; but in horses, it is 
comparatively short, extending only to the pan- 
creas and a small part of the colon,—and its ap- 
parent use is not so obvious as in cattle. 
CAYENNE PEPPER. See Capsicum. 
CEANOTHUS. A genus of ornamental plants, 
chiefly shrubs and small trees, of the buckthorn 
tribe. Seven species now comprised in this genus 
formerly belonged to the buckthorn genus, and one 
to the staff-tree genus; and six species formerly 
classed among the ceanothi are now assigned to 
other genera. About twenty species of ceanothi, 
according to the present constitution of the ge- 
nus, are cultivated in the gardens of Great Bri- 
tain ; and nearly twenty more have been described 
by botanists. More than one half of the intro- 
duced species are evergreen shrubs of from 3 
to 15 feet in height, from countries within or 
near the tropics; one, C. perennis, is a hardy, 
perennial rooted herb, of two feet in height, from 
Carolina; and most of the others are hardy, de- 
ciduous, white-flowered shrubs, of two or three 
feet in height, from North America. The species 
distinctively called American, C. americana, was 
introduced from North America in 1713, and is 
very generally known as a hardy ornamental 
shrub. It popularly bears the names of red- 
wood, red-twig, and New Jersey tea. Its stem 
has a pale brown colour, and a height of between 
two and three feet ; its branches grow from the 
lower and the middle as well as the upper parts 
of the stem, and are thin, flexible, and reddish ; 
its leaves stand on reddish footstalks of about 25 
inches in length, and are oval, pointed, serrated, 
21 inches long, and proportionally broad; and 
its flowers have a white colour, and grow in 
