BUTTONING.
I cannot perhaps do better than to mention here such other causes as have this same tendency. Anything which checks the growth of the plants when they are a few inches high is liable to produce this result—such as leaving them too long in the seed-bed, withholding water, poor soil, too much crowding. After the plants are set out, a cold rainy time or badly drained land may have the same effect; also a very hot time, if the soil is dry and the plants are not growing well. The check occasioned by the transplanting may also cause the plants to button, if they have become large, and the soil or weather is unfavorable. On this account it is unsafe to let cauliflower plants get as large as cabbage plants sometimes are when transplanted.
I will close this topic by quoting two paragraphs from The Garden, an English journal from which I have already taken much valuable information. The first is by a person who signs himself "D. T. F.," who says:
"Cambrian The next writer, Mr. Gilbert, adds: "The whole of my Early London cauliflowers have buttoned, but not the Walcheren, at least at present. I hear, too, this is the case in many parts of the country. I have for years noted that after a cold severe winter and a warm spring both cauliflowers and cabbages 'bolt,' but this season having been quite the reverse I thought they might have escaped." Another writer calls attention to the fact that plants which have been nursed or protected too much during winter are more apt to button when set out in the spring than those which have been more exposed.