; if too large they will be likely to button instead of
forming fully developed heads.

When the young plants are transplanted into their winter quarters they
should be set deeply, as the stem is the part most easily injured by
cold; the same rule of planting deeply should be followed in the first
plantings in the open ground in spring.

Wintering in the open air in a warm sheltered situation is preferable,
where it can be done, to wintering under frames, for plants so exposed
will be most healthy and will continue their growth with least
interruption in the spring.

Plants wintered under glass require considerable room, and as much air
as can be safely given. If pots are used, care must be taken not to have
them too small, or to allow them to become entirely filled with the
roots, for this will have a tendency to cause the plants to button.

BUTTONING.

I cannot perhaps do better than to mention here such other causes as
have this same tendency. Anything which checks the growth of the plants
when they are a few inches high is liable to produce this result--such
as leaving them too long in the seed-bed, withholding water, poor soil,
too much crowding. After the plants are set out, a cold rainy time or
badly drained land may have the same effect; also a very hot time, if
the soil is dry and the plants are not growing well. The check
occasioned by the transplanting may also cause the plants to button, if
they have become large, and the soil or weather is unfavorable. On this
account it is unsafe to let cauliflower plants get as large as cabbage
plants sometimes are when transplanted.

I will close this topic by quoting two paragraphs from _The Garden_, an
English journal from which I have already taken much valuable
information. The first is by a person who signs himself "D. T. F.," who
says:

"Cambrian [a previous writer] attributes this to over-manuring, and no
doubt this frequently causes buttoning, but over-frosting is quite as
injurious as over-manuring; and the hard frost which we had here on the
1st of April seems to be sending all the exposed plants into buttons,
whilst those protected only with glass lights seem safe and sound and
are spreading their leaves wide and looking extremely promising."

The next writer, Mr. Gilbert, adds:

"The whole of my Early London cauliflowers have buttoned, but not the
Walcheren, at least at present. I hear, too, this is the case in many
parts of the country. I have f