The Cauliflower

by A. A. Crozier

The American Garden for 1889, page 59, says: "Almost nine-tenths of all the cauliflowers that come to the New York market are grown in Suffolk County on Long Island, and this industry is said to bring about $200,000 a year to the county. Success with cauliflower culture has been very indifferent in other parts of Long Island and elsewhere where tried."

A New Jersey market-gardener described his experience as follows a few years ago in the New York Tribune: "Among the many uncertain crops, the cauliflower stands prominent, for very often under the best culture, it fails to produce a head on an acre, although the usual outlay for preparing and manuring the ground preparatory to planting will be at least twice as much as for a crop of late cabbage. But when a full crop of cauliflower is raised, the profits will average three times that of the cabbage in the same market. This being the case, it is not strange that every means known to the profession should be resorted to with the hope of getting year after year maximum crops of this vegetable. But, as yet, no plan has been discovered, under our burning July and August sun, that will make cauliflower head with certainty every season. Any practical man, with strong ground well manured, can every now and then raise a crop of cauliflower. But this partial success one year does very often prove a decided loss in the long run, for the reason that it often happens three times the amount realized from this crop will be spent in the attempt to raise another just like it, with the determination not to give up. This has been my experience, although the experiments are made now on a much smaller scale than formerly. Last year I set out 2,500 plants, and only marketed 500 from the patch; the failure was owing to late planting. To avoid any such mistake this year, the ground was made ready for planting early in July, and by the middle of the month some 1,800 plants set out. The ground in this case was richer and more mellow at the time of planting than last year, and the cultivation was about the same. At first these plants grew vigorously, but late in August they were checked from some unknown cause, and from this check they did not recover. Some of the lower leaves had turned yellow and dropped off, leaving the stalks almost bare, while others have made no new growth since. Judging from present appearances, there will not be twenty-five sizeable heads out of the 1,800 planted. This is rather discouraging, but one has to take the good with the bad in farming or gardening. Too late to remedy the error it was found that the variety planted was Walcheren instead of the Erfurt, a variety that has given me more profitable returns for the last six years than any other, unless it may be the Half Early Paris."

In New England the crop is more uncertain than on Long Island. W. H. Bull, of Hampden County, Massachusetts, finds the crop profitable about one year in three. Formerly, he says, when cauliflowers were a new thing, any kind of a head would sell, but now only the best will bring a paying price. The loose, leafy, purple, or otherwise discolored heads produced in hot, dry weather, are hardly worth hauling to market. He finds the Extra Early Erfurt about as good as Henderson's Snowball. He sows the seed in April for a fall crop. If sown after the first week in May the plants fail to head before frost.

Around Boston the cauliflower is grown quite successfully, and, as elsewhere stated, seed is occasionally produced there. The variety formerly grown for the main crop was an improved form of Early Paris, called Boston Market, but this is now displaced by the new Extra Early Erfurt strains. It may be mentioned here that around Montreal the fall crop is very successfully grown.

THE LAKE REGION.

In the region of the Great Lakes there are many localities having a suitable soil in which cauliflower may be grown to good advantage. The moist atmosphere, which renders much of this region so well adapted to the cultivation of fruit, favors the growth of the cauliflower. In this region the fall crop is the one mainly grown, and the half-early varieties, such as Early Paris and Early London have been chiefly used, though the earlier Erfurt varieties are now largely grown.

Detroit, Grand Rapids, and other Michigan cities are comparatively well supplied with home-grown cauliflower.

In Western Michigan there is considerable high, rolling land, of a deep loamy character, covered originally with a heavy growth of hard-wood timber. It was on such land as this, in Ottawa County, that the writer grew cauliflower very successfully between the years 1870 and 1884. The land had but recently been cleared of its timber, and it seldom received any other fertilizer than the heavy June-grass sod which was turned under. The method of preparing the ground was the same as for any other farm crop, and the plants, mainly of the Early Paris variety, were set out about the last of June, usually four feet apart each way. They were given good care, and generally began to head in September, at the time of the autumnal equinox, when there is usually a week or two of cool, rainy weather. Following this, early in October, there are generally a few hard frosts which injure some of the heads if they are not kept well covered and closely cut. The main cauliflower season then comes on, running through October and the first half of November. In a warm, late season nearly all the plants will have headed, and the heads have been sold before cold weather, but when winter comes on early, a portion of the plants will be still undeveloped; these are either gathered and stored, as elsewhere described, or used for feeding stock. My crop was marketed at Grand Rapids and Chicago, and was considered the finest sent to either of those cities. Its excellence was attributed mainly to the deep new fertile soil, which never suffered from drouth under proper cultivation, and to the moist climate, due to the surrounding forests and the proximity to Lake Michigan.

At South Haven, on the immediate shore of Lake Michigan, the upland is mainly too heavy for the best growth of cauliflower. Mr. Sheffer says: (Mich. Ag. Rep. 1888, p. 287) "We have the advantage of cheap lands, cheap transportation to a boundless market, and a moist climate, all making celery and cauliflower desirable crops. For cauliflower, the proper soil is the first essential. If planted on uplands it will fail nine times out of ten, unless set so late as to head up just before winter. But it is better to grow it on low wet soils that can be ditched as far away as Philadelphia."

In Kent County, with which I am familiar, the cauliflower is successfully cultivated by many gardeners, but, as the air is drier, more care is required there in selecting the soil, the crop being usually grown on bottom lands favorably situated with regard to moisture, and containing an abundance of vegetable matter. It is occasionally grown on muck, but such land is not as reliable as that of a heavier character. On the light, sandy, and gravelly uplands, which abound in this county, the cultivation of the cauliflower is seldom attempted, and always fails, except in unusually wet seasons, although when such land is heavily manured, the cabbage may be grown successfully.