"You ask me for an account of my Early Perfection or "No. 9." It was a sport or a "stray seed," found among some Erfurt Earliest Dwarf imported seed, and being the first in the field to form a head by over a week, I naturally saved it for "stock seed," and as it propagated itself perfectly, and was perfection itself, I named it Early Perfection. I am not aware of another by the name of Perfection on the market—never saw it in the seedmen's catalogues. Early Padilla and Early Long Island Beauty, by Brill, are the same; they originated with me, are a selection from Erfurt Large, and are early and large.
"All of Tillinghast's Puget Sound cauliflower seed has been grown by me. I have also grown all that Francis Brill has put on the market.
"D. M. Ferry & Co.'s Early Puritan originated with me, from a sport of Henderson's Snowball. I sold them the stock for two years.
"Yours Truly,
H. A. March."141
CHAPTER VIII.
VARIETIES.
The varieties of cauliflower differ among themselves less than those of most other vegetables, and their characters are less firmly fixed. Their tendency to degenerate, especially under unfavorable conditions, and the readiness with which they may be improved by selection, has given rise within recent years to numerous so called varieties, some of them but slightly differing from those from which they originated. These have frequently received the names of the seedsmen who first sent them out. Many of these seedmen's varieties have dropped out of cultivation, as well as other varieties which have appeared from time to time, but which have not possessed sufficient distinctive merit. Some varieties, from not having been kept up to their original standard, have reverted to those from which they sprang, or become so like them that their names have come to be regarded as synonyms.