The Cauliflower

by A. A. Crozier

It is perhaps for this reason that England, Denmark, and Central Germany have produced more early varieties than Holland, France and Italy. The dry calcareous soil of some parts of England appears to be particularly favorable to the production of early varieties.

In the vicinity of Boston, cauliflower seed has been grown to some extent, especially the variety known as Boston Market, which was formerly very popular there. James J. H. Gregory writes me under date of March 3d, 1891, that he raised 60 pounds of seed of the Boston Market from 500 plants, where from the same number of plants of the Snowball and Extra Early Erfurt, grown under precisely the same conditions, he obtained less than a great spoonful. The seed was raised on an island used expressly for that purpose.

It is a custom in England and Holland, where the season is too short for the seed to ripen perfectly, to diminish the number of seed-stalks on a plant by cutting out the centre of the head. The flower-stalks require to be supported by stakes, and when the seed is nearly mature, to be guarded from birds. A plaster cat is recommended as a good scare-crow, especially if its position is changed every few days, so that the birds will continue to think that it is alive.

Cauliflower seed, as is well known, is smaller and inferior in appearance to cabbage seed, and always contains a considerable proportion, which is shrunken and worthless. This poor seed is removed from the crop as much as possible before it is sold. This shrunken condition arises from the fact that a large share of the flowers fail to set, and many of the pods only partly fill. Shrunken seed is no indication of inferiority of variety, in fact rather otherwise, for the most compact heads, being the most deformed from a structural point of view, give the least amount of good seed. Still, it is not necessarily true that the highest priced seed is always the best and most economical to use. A new variety, until it becomes well established, requires rigid selection, and this so reduces the amount produced that a high price can be obtained for all that is grown. An older variety, on the other hand, which has become so well established, and comes so true that nearly every head is perfect and will furnish good seed, can be supplied at a cheaper rate and may for a given purpose be equally good. As a rule it may be said that the newest and highest priced seeds are too expensive to use on a large scale, and the cheapest seeds are inferior in quality. One should not judge of the value of a variety wholly by the price at which its seed is sold. Most of the high priced varieties are dwarf kinds, which are becoming more and more popular in this country, but which produce comparatively little seed.

Our varieties of cauliflowers have all been developed by means of selection. Desirable features have either been acquired by gradual selection through successive generations in a given locality; or some sudden variation has been preserved and perpetuated. Climate, as already stated, has had much to do in developing certain peculiarities. The varieties of Italy, France, Holland and Germany have in each case certain features common among themselves which can only be accounted for by the influence of the particular climate in which they are grown. It is, therefore, useless to attempt to maintain these characters wholly unchanged in other climates. Hardiness, earliness, certainty of heading, protection of the head by leaves, and shortness of stem, can all be increased by selection, but, as they are all likewise influenced by climate, the selection is more effective in some climates than in others. The varieties of the south of Europe are as a whole characterized by a long period of growth, tall stems, great vigor and hardiness, and by having the leaves inclined to grow upright and protect the head.

The cauliflower crosses readily with the cabbage and other varieties and species of the genus Brassica. It does not usually flower at the same time, however, as other members of the genus, so the difficulty is not usually great in keeping it pure.

In France the cauliflower has been crossed artificially with cabbage, turnip and rutabaga, in the attempt to obtain varieties of greater hardiness. Numerous peculiar forms were the result of these crosses, some of which were good cauliflowers, said to be of increased hardiness, but none of them have found their way into general cultivation. One of these, owing to a cross with the turnip, acquired the flavor of that vegetable. A full account of these crosses may be found in the Revue Horticole for 1880.

The following remarks, by Mr. A. Dean, of England, on a case of apparent crossing in the cabbage tribe will be read with interest:

"A very pretty conical-headed plant of a Colewort was allowed to run to seed, but nothing else of the same family was known to be in flower for a distance of at least several hundred yards. The produce was saved and sown, and has been furnishing food for the table during the past winter, but what a progeny! Some were reproductions of the seed parent, but larger, and proved very handsome early cabbages; others were very fair Coleworts; others bad examples of Cottager's Purple Kale, others Green Kale, while others resembled sprouting Broccoli, both green and purple. One plant was an example of the once popular Dalmany sprouts, and there were many other plants that admitted of no classification. It is probable that bees, which travel long distances, had somewhere found some sprouting in Broccoli flower and had brought pollen from those to the Colewort plant in question."

Spontaneous variation has given a number of curious forms of cauliflower, including one with several heads in the place of one, and another in which the head is flattened sidewise, like the garden cockscomb. These forms have not been cultivated.