CAULIFLOWER SEED.
With no vegetable is it more important to have good seed than with the
cauliflower, and in none is there a greater tendency to deteriorate. On
this account less dependence is to be placed upon named varieties than
in some other cultivated plants, and greater need is required to secure
carefully selected strains. Owing to peculiarities of soil, climate and
season, and the different degrees of care given by the different
growers, seeds of the same variety may be better from one source than
from another. On this account, when a variety is found adapted to one's
needs it is well to use the same variety, and obtain it from the same
source year after year.
Cauliflower seed is mostly grown in Europe, chiefly in Holland and
Germany, to some extent in Italy and France, and less in England. One
variety, the Large Asiatic, seeds abundantly in Northern India. There
are a few localities where the seed is successfully grown in the United
States.
In Europe the dwarf early varieties are chiefly grown in the north, and
the large late varieties at the south. In the south the seed is most
easily grown, and southern seed brings the lowest price.
McIntosh states that cauliflower seed seldom ripens in Scotland. In
England, as I have said, it is grown to a limited extent, but not so
much as that of broccoli. The seed plants are there selected in June, at
the time of heading, and allowed to stand until the seed matures. Mr.
Dean states that his Early Snowball produces in warm, early seasons
better seed in England than anywhere else. Loudon, in his "Encyclopaedia
of Gardening" (5th Ed., 1827) quotes Neill, as saying that "Until the
time of the French Revolution, quantities of English cauliflower were
regularly sent to Holland and the low countries, and even France
depended on us for cauliflower seed. Even now English seed is preferred
to any other."
A later English writer states that the English prefer Dutch seed and the
Dutch English seed.
Most of the seed now used in England, as well as nearly all of that sold
in this country comes from Holland, France and Germany. The climate,
especially of Holland and North Germany, is particularly favorable for
the production of fine strains of seed, especially of the dwarf early
varieties.
McIntosh ("Book of the Garden," 1855, Vol. II, p. 116) says: "Our best
cauliflower seed is imported from Holland, and for its quality we have
much greater reason to thank the better climate than the growers, who
are not over particular in the matter, as Dutch cauliflower seed is sure
to sell."
The Mediterranean varieties are generally large, and require for the
most part too long a season to be popular and successful in this
country. As dwarf varieties have been produced, the cultivation of this
vegetable in Europe has extended farther north. As already stated, when
the cauliflower was first cultivated in France the island of Cyprus was
the only place where it was known to seed, and for a time the plant was
known in England under the name of Cyprus Colewort.
Although most of the seed used in the United States is still imported,
American grown seed appears to give good satisfaction and is moderate in
price. Professor W. J. Green, of the Ohio experiment station, who tested
Puget Sound seed in 1889, reported as follows: "The most remarkable
examples [of the superiority of Northern grown seed] are found in the
Puget Sound cabbage and cauliflower seed, which show great vitality and
consequent vigor in growth of plant. We have received numerous samples
grown in that region by H. A. March and A. G. Tillinghast, brother of
Isaac Tillinghast, the seedsman. These seeds were very large, full of
vitality, and the plants uncommonly vigorous. At transplanting time the
plants were nearly twice the height of others of the same variety, while
the difference in color was very marked. This robust habit continued to
manifest itself during a greater part of the season, but as maturity
approached, the variation was less and less marked, until at last the
others had caught up, and there was no perceptible difference." No
change in time of maturity or habit of growth was noticed.
Mr. Brill, of Long Island, states that to secure seed there it is best
to winter over the partially headed plants in a cold frame or cellar,
and set them out early in the spring. The summers are so warm there,
however, that except in particularly favorable seasons but little seed
forms. Several excellent early varieties have originated on Long Island,
and there is reason to believe that hot, changeable climates, though
unprofitable for the growing of seed, are particularly favorable for the
production and maintenance of early sorts able to head in hot weather.
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.
Cauliflower seed contains on an average about 7,000 seeds to the ounce,
of which about one-half usually germinate, a much smaller per cent. than
in cabbage. Long Island growers estimate two ounces of seed to the acre
as a safe amount for the small varieties and an ounce and a half for the
late varieties.
It was formerly a common belief, especially in England, that old seed
would be most likely to produce good heads. There is little evidence to
support this belief, and just as little ground for the more recent
belief held by some that old seed is particularly liable to produce
loose worthless heads. Like all other seed cauliflower seed ought to be
as fresh as possible; fresh seed always germinates best and gives the
most vigorous plants. Seed two or three years old, however, is generally
satisfactory, and it will often grow successfully at double that age.
"CAULIFLOWER SEED GROWING ON PUGET SOUND."
By H. A. March, Fidalgo Island, Puget Sound, Washington, in _Rural New
Yorker_, 1888.
"I am told by very good authority that cauliflower seeds had never been
grown in the United States as a field crop to any extent until we made a
success of it here on Puget Sound. In the first place a very cool,
moist climate is necessary to cure [secure] seeds at all. That climate
we have here on our low flat islands lying in the mouth of the Gulf of
Georgia. We often have heavy fogs in the night, and always dews equal to
a light shower every night all summer long. The first expense attending
the raising of cauliflower seed is quite heavy. The soil must be a rich,
warm loam facing the south, and it will be all the better for having a
clay subsoil. We must have the land underdrained once in twenty feet,
the drains being three feet deep, to give us a chance to work early in
the spring, and also to take off the surplus water when we come to flood
the land in July.
"To prepare the land for the crop we start in September. After the fall
rains have softened the soil, plow, harrow, roll, harrow again, then
replow and work it again, until the soil is as fine as an onion bed. Now
we throw it into ridges, six feet apart, and it is ready for work in
early spring. For manure we sow 2,000 pounds of superphosphate and
ground Sitka herring, equal parts of each, to the acre. With two horses
and a Planet, Jr., cultivator we work the ridges until they are nearly
level. By using two horses we straddle the ridge, and save tramping it
where our plants are to go.
"To get the plants, we sow the seeds about September 1, in rather poor
soil, giving them plenty of room; the rows being a foot apart and the
seeds sown thinly in the rows. This gives us stocky and hardy plants,
which, we think, are less liable to damp off when transplanted. About
November 1 we transplant the plants into cold frames, six inches apart
each way, as we wish to keep them growing a little all winter. The
glasses are kept on at night and through heavy rains. In case of a cold
snap, we cover the glasses with mats; but that is not often necessary,
for we seldom have a temperature colder than 16 deg. above zero. Everything
depends on good plants and an early start in the spring, for we raise
two crops the same season, and an early frost on our unripe seed is sure
to ruin the crop. Now, to set the plants out and make them grow from the
start, a line is stretched along one of these flat ridges, a boy goes
along, and with a three-foot marker marks the spots for the plants; a
man follows with a hoe and makes a hole, about the size of a quart dish,
to receive each plant. During the winter we have gathered up 200 or 300
tomato and oyster cans, melted off the tops and bottoms, leaving tubes
about five inches long by three or four across. Now, armed with a light
wheelbarrow with a wooden tray, containing from 50 to 75 of these cans,
we go to the cold-frame (having well soaked it with water the night
before); take a can, set it right down over the plant; press the can
into the soil about two inches, and, with a light shove to one side,
lift the plant without disturbing the roots; fill our tray and start for
the field; run the barrow between two rows and set a can and plant in
each of the holes just made. A boy follows with a watering pot
containing _warm_ water, and pours a gill into each tube, which softens
the soil so that the tubes can be lifted right out, leaving the plant
standing in the hole. We brush a little dirt around the plant, and firm
it with the blade of the hoe.
"Now we have our plants set, and not one ever wilts in the hottest
spring day. In two or three days the cultivator is started and kept a
going once a week until the heads begin to form. We hand-hoe three or
four times, besides fighting insects. The cabbage maggot is our worst
enemy.
"When the flowers commence to bloom out or form heads, is the most
particular time. A man who thoroughly understands what a perfect
cauliflower is, must now go through the field every two or three days
and examine every head, and if there is any sign of its growing in
quarters, or if a leaf is growing through the head, or if there is any
looseness in its growth, the heads are staked and cut for market. For,
as like produces like, it will never do to get seed from an inferior
head, especially in the case of cauliflowers; for the seeds from these
are more apt to run wild than any seed I ever grew. We usually set a
Fottler cabbage in the place from which the poor plant has been cut, and
it makes a fine head by fall.
"By the middle of June we have the field clear of all inferior heads,
and their places filled with late cabbages. About this time all the
heads saved for seed are 'sponging out' preparing to throw their
seed-stalks. Now is our time to help them. On the upper side of the
field, we have wooden water tanks, each holding about 20,000 gallons of
_warm_ water. The water is run into the tanks in the middle of the day
through flat open troughs, which heat it up to about 70 deg. Fah. It is
taken through canvas hose over the field, and the soil is soaked to the
subsoil. Now our underdrains come into play, for all of the surplus
water is drained off in about three days, and we can start the
cultivator. We cultivate close up to the plants. If we break the leaves
off it doesn't matter, for they fall off anyway as soon as the seed
stalks start. This watering gives the plants new life and they start off
for a second crop, or become biennials the first year. The watering and
cultivation are kept up once in 10 days until the seed-stalks are so
large that they cannot be run through without breaking the plants. The
seed ripens from the middle of September to the last of October,
according to how good a start was made in the spring.
"The expense and trouble are not over yet. The seed is ripening about
the time our rainy season sets in, and we don't see the sun once a week
on an average, so that our seed must all be dried by fire heat. Our
dry-houses are 30 x 20 feet, and 18 feet high with 2 x 6 inch joists
running across the houses in tiers, on which we hang the seeds for
drying. A brick furnace is built in the middle of the house, with the
flue running through the roof.
"We usually make three cuttings. As soon as the pods on the center
stalks begin to turn yellow, and the seed a light brown, we make our
first cutting. From one to three plants are put in a pile and tied with
binding twine. The bundles are taken to the dry-house on wheelbarrows,
made with racks on purpose for carrying the seeds. A cloth is spread
over the rack to catch any shelling seeds. A man carries about 100
bunches at a load and passes them up to a man in the house who hangs
them on nails driven for the purpose. The seed is allowed to hang a few
days to thoroughly ripen before firing up. We aim to keep the heat in
the top of the house at about 80 deg. until the seed and stalks are dry.
"The bundles are now taken down and laid upon a cloth where they are
crushed by walking on them. Grain sacks are then filled with the stalks
and pods as full as they will tie up, and the contents are thrashed in
the sacks with a flail. The seed is then sifted from the stalks and
taken to the fanning-mill, and after putting it through the mill two or
three times, we set the boys to rolling it. For this purpose we have a
board two and a half feet long by one foot wide, with thin strips nailed
on the sides to keep the seeds from rolling off. A boy sits down on a
cloth with a pan of seed by his side, and holds one end of the board in
his lap, while the other end rests on the cloth. He puts a handful of
seed on the top end of the board and gently shakes it. All of the sound
plump seeds run off on to the cloth, while the shriveled seeds, bits of
stalk, dirt, weed seeds, etc., remain on the board. A smart Indian boy
will clean ten pounds a day, at a cost of 50 cents and his board. Now
the seed is sacked in double cotton sacks, holding about ten pounds
each, and is ready for market."
In a subsequent paper the same writer said, in answer to inquiries upon
the subject, that the cauliflower and cabbage readily mixed, but that
there was little danger of their doing so in his locality, as the
cabbage was nearly out of flower before the cauliflower began to
blossom. To make the matter certain, however, boys were sent to every
neighboring cabbage patch to clip off all straggling late blossoms that
remained. Only one variety of cauliflower, or strains of one variety,
is grown by him for seed in any one year.
The following letter from the same writer explains itself:
"FIDALGO, Washington, April 3, 1891.
"MR. A. A. CROZIER, Ann Arbor, Mich.
"_Dear Sir_:--Your letter of inquiry received. In answer would say, I am
the original cauliflower raiser in the Puget Sound country. In 1882 I
discovered that by wintering the plants over in cold-frame, and keeping
them growing all winter, those that were transplanted _without wilting_
would form heads, and then throw seed-stalks in time to form seed before
frost, if they were continually wet with tepid water after heading. The
first seed that was put on the market was sold by Francis Brill,
Riverhead, L. I. Since then I have furnished some of the largest firms
in the country with seed, and the seed has given perfect satisfaction.
There is a secret in raising good seed that I don't care to give away.
Several of my neighbors have tried to raise the seed, and I believe some
of it has been put on the market, but it has proved inferior for the
want of skill in knowing _which heads_ to seed from, as all heads will
not do to seed from, even though they may appear perfect to an
inexperienced eye. It's skilled labor that produces No. 1 seed.
"I enclose you my circular, with reports from growers and dealers, also
quite a few from the experiment stations. I have a large number that I
have not printed, as they came too late for this year. The business has
grown from a few pounds in 1882 to nearly 300 pounds in 1890. I think in
the near future, that Puget Sound will grow all of the cauliflower seed
that will be grown in the country. Cabbage seed is also grown to a large
extent. I raised about two tons last year, and there probably will be
ten tons raised on Puget Sound the coming summer.
"Cabbage and cauliflower are grown to a considerable extent both in
Oregon and Washington, though California sends our first to this market.
"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."