pported 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