The Cauliflower Part 4

Mr. J. N. Whitner, in his work on "Gardening in Florida," recommends Early s...o...b..ll, 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 quant.i.ties 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 Hitchc.o.c.k, Galveston County, gives an account of his success with American grown (Puget Sound) seed of Henderson's s...o...b..ll 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.

"It will pay to subsoil for cauliflower, in order to give them all the moisture possible, though they will stand a drouth in the fall equally as well as a cabbage."

In this connection may be mentioned the following account of cauliflower growing at Durango, Mexico, sent to the _Gardener's Chronicle_ in 1853: The writer says: "Of the culinary vegetables, none excel the cauliflower, which attains such a size that a single head measures 18 inches to 2 feet in diameter, and makes a donkey load. The gigantic cauliflower is not distinct from our European species, but is solely produced by a cultivation which necessity has dictated. Being one of the Northern vegetables that degenerate or bear no seed if not annually procured from Europe, it is propagated by cuttings. After the heads are gathered the stubs are allowed to throw out new shoots, which are again planted and have to grow two years, producing the second, the enormous heads."

The following from Woodrow's "Gardening in India," (4th edition, Bombay, 1888), contains many interesting points of suggestive value for the extreme South:

"Cauliflower, being a delicate plant, always needs great care and attention in its cultivation, but much less care is necessary in this country than in Europe. The soil most suitable is a rich friable loam, such as occurs in the black soil of the Duccan, the alluvial tracts in the basin of the Ganges or Nerbudda. Thorough working of the soil is necessary, and in stations where the market price of cauliflower is usually over four annas per head, as is the case in many parts of Southern India, the crop is well worth extra care in the preparation of the soil. This process should be begun shortly after the rains, when the soil is easily plowed or dug. It should then be turned up roughly to a depth of a foot or fifteen inches. A month later the clods should be broken with the mallet or clod crusher, and the plow put through the ground a second time. When the soil has weathered a few weeks, the scarifier or cultivator should be run over it once monthly until May. At that time good decayed cow dung or poudrette should be spread one inch deep, and any close growing crop which is not valuable, such as _sunn_, _tag_, _chanamoo_, or _Crotolaria juncea_, should be sown to keep down weeds and encourage the formation of nitric acid in the soil, which has been proved to be effected to a greater extent under a crop than on bare soil. During dry weather in August the crop should be pulled up and the ground plowed or dug and the crop buried in the trenches to act as green manure, and the land prepared for irrigation.

The seed-bed should be prepared by thorough digging and mixing about an inch in depth of old manure; wood ashes and decayed sweepings having a quant.i.ty of goat or sheep dung in it is well suited for the seed-bed at this season. Cow dung is apt to have the larva of the dung beetle in it--a very large caterpillar which destroys young plants by eating through the stem under ground. The bed having been thoroughly watered, the seed may be sown broadcast or in lines, and covered with a quarter of an inch of fine, dry, sandy soil, and shaded from bright suns.h.i.+ne.

When the seedlings appear, gradually remove the shade. The most convenient form of bed is not more than four feet in width, the length being sufficient for the ground to be planted. One ounce of seed is sufficient for a bed fifty feet square, which will give sufficient plants for an acre if the seed is good. Sowing should be made once in ten days, from the middle of August till the end of September. If the garden has been neglected, or the district remarkable for the quant.i.ty of grubs that yearly come out in August, spread a considerable part of the garden with a thick coating of stable litter or dry leaves and burn it, prepare the seed bed in the middle of the burnt s.p.a.ce, and soak two pounds of saltpetre in water for one hundred square feet, and water the bed with it for at least two weeks before sowing the seed. When the seedlings have acquired about five leaves, and the ground to plant is ready, lift the young plants gently on a cloudy day, and plant them out two and one-half feet apart each way. If bright suns.h.i.+ne comes out, shade the newly moved plants with broad leaves, and water them daily with the watering pot for a few days, besides irrigating sufficiently to keep the soil moist. Afterwards, hoeing, picking grubs and replacing the losses from the seed-bed must be attended to.

The selection of sorts is a serious matter in cauliflower culture, because many sorts grow only to leaves in some climates, and great loss has been met with by some people in consequence of getting the wrong variety. The variety known to English seedsmen as Large Asiatic, has established itself in the Northern Provinces, where a good head of cauliflower is procurable in December for one-half anna. In Bombay the same would cost ten times that sum. The seed of this variety is remarkably cheap in the districts it bears seed in. From Shajehanpore I bought large quant.i.ties at Rs. 2 per pound, while the price of seed from England was Rs. 2 per ounce. This sort is perfectly reliable when properly cultivated, but it is considered inferior in flavor and delicacy to English sorts, and its season is very short. It appears to run to seed when January comes, at whatever time it may have been sown, while English varieties come into use from the beginning of December to the end of February according to the date of sowing.

Among European varieties, success will generally be met with by sowing Early London and Walcheren. The different Giant and Mammoth varieties advertised in seedsmen's catalogues should be grown as extras, and if one is found to suit the soil and climate of a particular station, it may be grown more extensively afterwards; my experience with those varieties has not been happy."

THE PACIFIC COAST.

Fine early cauliflowers are grown in California under irrigation, and marketed as far east as Chicago. Oregon and Was.h.i.+ngton include a large area adapted to cauliflower growing, and this favorable territory extends northward into Alaska. The cool, moist climate of the Upper Pacific coast resembles that of England, where cauliflowers are so extensively grown.

There are few good markets yet in this region, but the rapid growth of the cities which exist affords promise of a large future demand for this vegetable, which is likely to come into more general use as it becomes better known.

Professor E. R. Lake, of the Oregon experiment station, states that some parts of the Oregon coast are well adapted to the cauliflower, but that other interests and lack of transportation facilities have thus far prevented its cultivation for market, the bulk of the crop sold there coming from California. He adds that the Chinese in the vicinity of Portland cultivate this vegetable, but that their peculiar methods are not yet understood.

Some ten years ago experiments were begun by one of our seedsmen in raising cauliflower and cabbage seed on the alluvial tide lands on the sh.o.r.e of Puget Sound. These lands, after being diked and drained, proved to be remarkably well adapted to the growth of the cauliflower and its seed. Others have since engaged in growing these seeds in the same region, and the business is a.s.suming large proportions. An account of this enterprise may be found in the chapter on Seed.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Dr. Oemler is the author of an excellent work ent.i.tled "Truck Farming in the South." His farm is on Wilmington Island, in the mouth of the Savannah River.

CHAPTER VI.

INSECT AND FUNGUS ENEMIES.

The insect enemies of the cauliflower are the same as those which attack the cabbage and other related plants. The four here mentioned require to be specially guarded against. In preparing these notes I am indebted to Mr. L. O. Howard, of the Department of Agriculture, at Was.h.i.+ngton, for essential aid.

FLEA BEETLE (_Phyllotrea striolata_, Fabr).--This insect, also known as the "ground flea" or "Jack," seldom attacks the plants except while growing in the open ground, and is most troublesome in warm, sheltered situations. A safe preventive, therefore, is to grow the plants in beds or frames elevated about three feet from the ground. The objection to this method, aside from the extra labor involved, is the necessity of almost daily attention to see that the soil does not dry out. A supply of water must be conveniently at hand if this method is used, and it is desirable also, to prevent the beds drying out too quickly, to have the earth at least eight inches deep. In hot-beds this insect is seldom troublesome, being probably repelled by the fumes from the manure used. When the seed is sown in the open ground, as practised by many large growers, an extra quant.i.ty should be used to ensure against almost certain loss of some of the plants by the flea beetle.

The soil should be rich and fine, so that the plants will pa.s.s the critical stage as quickly as possible. Sowing radish seeds with the cauliflower is practised by some, as this seed costs but little, and the radishes, coming up first, are attacked by the fleas, which, to some extent, saves the cauliflowers. When the fleas appear, almost any kind of dust will keep them in check somewhat. Lime and ashes are used, but plaster, which adheres to the leaves better, seems equally good. I have had good success with rancid fish oil, mixed as thoroughly as possible with water and sprayed upon the plants. An emulsion made of the oil, in the same manner as hereafter described for kerosene, would enable it to be used to better advantage. A decoction of tobacco, or fine tobacco dust, are standard remedies for this insect.

CUT WORMS.--Cauliflower plants being fully twice as valuable as cabbage plants, and it being of more importance to have them started at the proper time, it is necessary to give greater care to protect them from cut worms. Absolutely clean land contains no cut worms, but such land is seldom used on which to plant cauliflower. Sod land, which is generally used, is nearly always full of cut worms. A mult.i.tude of remedies have been proposed for this pest, but few of them are of much value. The worms are most abundant and destructive in the lat.i.tude of New York during the month of May. Fortunately, cauliflowers are usually set out either earlier than this, for the early crop, so that they become well established and out of reach before their depredations seriously begin, or else, for the late crop, they are set toward the last of June, after the worms have begun to pupate, and are no longer troublesome. Until recently, digging and killing the worms by hand seemed to be almost the only practical remedy. Of late years, trapping the worms under bunches of gra.s.s or cabbage leaves, scattered over the ground preparatory to setting the plants, has been successfully resorted to. An improvement upon this method, recommended by the Entomologist of the United States Department of Agriculture, is now in use, and gives excellent satisfaction. It consists in poisoning with Paris green the leaves used to trap the worms, so that there is no need to collect and kill the worms by hand. A good way to do this is to spray with Paris green, in the usual way, a patch of young clover, then cut it and scatter it in small bunches over the cauliflower field a day or two before setting the plants. For the protection of a few plants in the garden, an effectual preventive against cut worms is to surround the stem with a cylinder of paper or tin. This need not touch the plant. One should expect to lose some plants, however, by cut worms, and be prepared with good plants to fill the vacancies.

CABBAGE MAGGOT (_Anthomya bra.s.sicae_, Bouche)--Dr. J. A.

Lintner, State Entomologist of New York, says of this insect: "This is probably the most injurious species of the _Anthomyiidae_, as its distribution is very extensive, both in Europe and America, and it has shown at times such capacity for multiplication as to cause the entire destruction of cabbage crops. It commences its attack upon the young plants while yet in the seed-bed and continues to infest them, in several successive broods, until they are taken up in the autumn. The larvae operate by consuming the rootlets of young plants, and by excoriating the surface and eating into the rind of older ones, or even penetrating into the interior of the root. When they abound to the extent of seriously burrowing the stalk the decay of the root frequently follows in wet seasons, and entire fields are thus destroyed."

The same insect attacks the turnip, cauliflower, and probably other plants. A closely related species is very injurious to the radish. The presence of the insect most frequently becomes manifest upon the cauliflower about two weeks after the plants are set out, and is recognized by the plants ceasing to grow, and wilting or a.s.suming a bluish appearance. Such plants should be at once removed, together with the earth immediately surrounding the root, and fresh plants which have been held in reserve set in their places. The only satisfactory remedies are preventive ones. The seed-bed should be composed of soil taken from the woods, or at least from some place where no cabbages or similar plants have been grown. But the most important precaution is to avoid growing the crop year after year upon the same ground, especially after the insect has made its appearance.

The following remedy, given by Francis Brill, in his pamphlet on "Cauliflowers," is worthy of careful trial. Mr. Brill says: "The ravages of the root maggot have made the growing of early cauliflower, and even early cabbages in many sections, almost an impossibility, but there is a remedy, when the maggot has attacked the roots of the plants, which may be known by a tendency of the leaves to wilt and droop in the heat of the day, very much the same as when affected by club root. Dissolve Muriate of Potash (a.n.a.lyzing 45 per cent. actual potash) in water in the proportion of one tablespoonful to the gallon; or double the quant.i.ty of Kainit or common potash salts (13 per cent. actual potash). Apply this directly to the roots, about one gill to each plant, whether seemingly affected or not, for the maggot will have done much harm before the plant will show it, repeating the application as occasion may seem to require. In sections where these maggots have been prevalent it will be well to make a solution of half the above strength, and when the plants are nicely started apply in the same manner as a preventive. Care and judgment must be used not to overdo the matter, thereby killing the plants as well as the maggots. Experiment a little at first."

H. A. March, of Was.h.i.+ngton, says: "The best thing that I have found for the maggot is a _poor_ grade of sulphur, sulphur before being purified, that _smells very strong_. Sprinkled over the plants it seems to drive the fly away."

CABBAGE WORM (_Pieris rapae_, Koch).--The imported cabbage worm, now known all over the country, is the most troublesome enemy which attacks either the cabbage or cauliflower, and the most difficult one with which to deal. It seldom wholly destroys the crop, and is generally a little less destructive after a few years than it is at first, being kept in check by its natural enemies. It never disappears, however, and its numbers cannot be materially diminished for any length of time by artificial means. Among the partial remedies in use are the following:

1. Catch the b.u.t.terflies with a net when they first appear in spring, before they have laid their eggs. This may keep the insect in check for a year or two when it first makes its appearance, as the b.u.t.terflies are comparatively slow fliers, and may be caught without much difficulty by a spry boy, especially in the morning when the air is damp.

2. Early in the season keep the young plants excluded from the b.u.t.terflies, and the whole place free from everything else of the cabbage tribe, except one or more patches of rutabagas or rape, on which the b.u.t.terflies will lay their eggs. This piece is to be then plowed under.

3. Hand pick the worms from the plants after they are set out, for the first one or two hoeings, or until the worms become very numerous.

4. Spray with kerosene emulsion, made by using two gallons of kerosene, one-half pound of common or whale oil soap, and one gallon of water.

Dissolve the soap in the water, and add it, boiling hot, to the kerosene; then churn, while at least warm, for five or ten minutes, by means of a force pump and spraying nozzle, until the mixture loses its oiliness and becomes like b.u.t.ter. When used, dilute one part of the emulsion with about fifteen of water, and spray it upon the plants by means of a force pump and spraying nozzle. This emulsion is also excellent for the cabbage louse and many other insects. In the report of the United States Department of Agriculture for 1883 may be found a description and figure of a suitable spraying apparatus.

5. Pyrethrum, one ounce to four gallons of water; or, better still, mixed one part with about twenty parts of flour and applied while the dew is on, is an effectual remedy.

6. Hot water, at 130 Fah., will kill the cabbage worms and not injure the leaves. Boiling water, placed in sprinkling cans and taken directly to the field, will be about the right temperature by the time it can be applied. Experiments with a few plants may be needed to enable one to get just the right temperature to kill the worms and not injure the plants.

7. Take half a pound of London purple to thirty pounds of finely pulverized dust of any kind, the finer and drier the better; mix thoroughly, pa.s.sing all through a meal sieve. Dash a small pinch into the heart of the plant, so that it will settle as dust on all the leaves. Repeat after every rain. Half a pound will serve for one application over forty acres. Store any that remains in a very dry place until again wanted.

8. Professor Gillette, of Colorado, finds the best remedy to be Paris green, thoroughly mixed, one ounce with six pounds of flour, and dusted lightly over the plants while the dew is on.

FUNGUS DISEASES.

There are several parasitic fungi which are more or less destructive to the cauliflower at different stages of its growth. The princ.i.p.al diseases of the cauliflower due to fungi are the following:

STEM ROT.--This is an old disease, which attacks the cauliflower, cabbage and other vegetables in wet seasons. It has received various other names, such as "consumption," "humid gangrene,"

etc. Professor Comes,[B] who has studied this disease in Italy, believes it to be the same as the "humid gangrene" which occurs in Germany, and which is there attributed to the parasitic attack of the fungus known as _Pleospora Napi_. He finds this and other fungi present, but does not himself consider them the direct cause of the disease, which he attributes solely to the abundance of manure and moisture in the soil, and an excess of water in the plant, at a time when it is subject to sudden changes of temperature. Beyond a doubt, however, the real cause of the disease is the presence of one or more fungi, whose development is favored by the damp weather. The subject requires further study.