"One of the most successful market gardeners and truck farmers in this vicinity [Mobile], says: 'We have cultivated cauliflower for a long series of years, but find it much less profitable than the raising of cabbage; first, on account of its tenderness, making it liable to be injured in transportation to distant markets, and second, by reason of repeated failure of the crop in consequence of the too early advent of spells of hot and dry weather at the opening of the warm season. We sow in November in cold frame, keep well thinned out under glass until about the 20th of January, then transplant to the open ground, cultivating well with frequent watering if the weather should be dry. If the months of April and May are dry and hot the crop results in a failure, from which, in our dry and thirsty soil, no irrigation will save it. In favorable seasons we have fine results, raising heads from ten to sixteen inches in diameter. In the perpetually damp and inexhaustibly fertile soil of the alluvial lands in the Mobile River delta (marshes drained by ditching) the cauliflower is raised in the greatest perfection, and is ready by Christmas time for the home market, bringing fancy prices. In such localities the early varieties, particularly the Early Paris, are used, the seed being sown in August. Outside of these marshes the early varieties are not grown, as they produce only small and meagre heads. Among the later varieties we find Algiers and Lenormand the best, buying the seed from Vilmorin in Paris.'"
Mr. J. N. Whitner, in his work on "Gardening in Florida," recommends Early Snowball, Extra Early Paris, and Extra Early Dwarf Erfurt. The seed is sown in boxes in autumn and protected from beating rains, and if sown before the middle of October the plants are also protected from the direct sun during the middle of the day. The main crop is planted out before the first of November, and harvested the following spring. In the northern portion of the state the plants are sometimes injured by the cold in winter. The crop is not yet extensively grown in that state. In regard to suitable soil, Mr. Whitner says:
"In this state almost every truck farmer has some low rich spot of bottom, lake or river margin suitable for the production of the cauliflower. It must, however, be well drained land, and no matter how fertile it may seem to be naturally, a liberal supply of manure will more certainly insure handsome flower heads."
Mr. Frotzer, a New Orleans seedsman, says of the cauliflower:
"This is one of the finest vegetables grown, and succeeds well in the vicinity of New Orleans. Large quantities are raised on the sea-coast in the neighborhood of Barataria Bay. The two Italian varieties are of excellent quality, growing to large size, and are considered hardier than the German and French varieties. I have had specimens brought to my store, raised from seed obtained from me, weighing sixteen pounds. The ground for planting cauliflower should be very rich. They thrive best in rich, sandy soil, and require plenty of moisture during the formation of the head. The Italian varieties should be sown from April till July; the latter month and June is the best time to sow the Early Giant. During August, September and October, the Lenormand, Half Early Paris and Erfurt can be sown. The Half Early Paris is very popular, but the other varieties are just as good. For spring crop the Italian kinds do not answer, but the Early French and German varieties can be sown at the end of December and during January, in a bed protected from frost, and may be transplanted into the open ground during February and as late as March. If we have a favorable season, and not too dry, they will be very fine; but if the heat sets in soon, the flowers will not attain the same size as those obtained from seeds sown in fall, and which head during December and January."
In the Texas Farm and Ranch, H. M. Stringfellow, of Hitchcock, Galveston County, gives an account of his success with American grown (Puget Sound) seed of Henderson's Snowball cauliflower. He says:
"After two years careful trial, I have found this seed every way superior to the original imported stock, good as that was, for our hot climate. The plants are much more robust, make equally as compact but larger heads, and what is most remarkable, they mature here fully two weeks or more ahead of the imported seed. Nearly every plant will make a marketable head, and they always sell for fully double as much as cabbage.
"These American seeds begin to head about the first of November, and are nearly all gone by Christmas, which gives ample time to get the crop off in any part of Texas.
"The cauliflower is emphatically a fall vegetable and seems to require for its perfect development a gradually decreasing temperature. The seed should be sowed from the first to the fifteenth of July, in a frame. Make the ground very rich, and if you use salt, which I consider almost an essential for this crop, turn it under deeply at the first plowing. In fact, salt and potash had better be deeply worked into the soil always, as it will not do for either to come in contact with the roots of a newly set plant.
"Until recently I have always thought that it would injure a plant to set it in soil to which cottonseed meal had been lately applied. But experiments made in the last few weeks prove that it is not only not injurious, but that cabbage plants grow off with wonderful vigor when the meal was applied the day before the plants were set.