very 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 bundle