RAISING CABBAGE.

Next to the carrot crop, I consider that cabbages will, considering the amount of labor, bring the best and quickest returns if managed according to the following pages.

In latitude north of 41° but one crop in a season should be attempted, in which case the “winter drumhead” variety is probably the most profitable, and the most marketable. In more southern latitudes the Sugar Loaf and Early York are probably the best early varieties, which may be succeeded the same season by the winter Drumhead, in which case, the early variety should be started in the fall in a cold frame, and haste must be observed in putting in the second crop as soon as the first will do to go to market. Have your plants ready of a goodly size for the second sitting.

Select strong ground and manure well, but not with hog manure for this will cause many club-footed cabbages. My experience is, that it will effect them thus in a measure even two years after it is put on. Do not work your ground when it is wet. If you are in Lat. 41° construct a cold frame (or, as it is often called, a hot bed) as early as the ground will admit, in which to sow your cabbage seed. Sow in drills that you may till them somewhat, as every plant of whatever kind should be cultivated when young, which is a great defect of most cultivators. I have heard some remark in that latitude that they did not wish to set out their winter cabbage too early, lest some of them burst before gathering time, but it is my observation that he who sowed late 21was troubled more with false or loose heads in the fall than with burst heads, while he has the privilege of taking out his heads that get ripe so early as to burst, and either use or sell them. However, I assert that I can make them head if the soil will grow them in time.

Transplanting.—Do not perform this when the ground is wet. Here is where I differ from all other cultivators. Do not allow an animal or human being upon the ground when it is wet, if you do, look for hard and lumpy ground when it becomes dry. Stretch a line across your patch; if it is sideling, stretch it up and down the slope, so that when you cultivate the young plants you will not be liable to throw dirt upon them. Now make a thick solution of water, muck, plaster (plaster of paris) and ashes, and draw your young plants (about a half dozen at once) through this solution, when each plant will have a little clump of mixture adhering to it. Do not dip them directly down into the mixture, if so the little rootlets will turn up and cleave to the sides, and not be of any use to the plant when set out, when they are very essential to its prosperity. The muck and plaster are both adhesive, drawing moisture and giving strength to the young plant, and causing it to stand as erect beneath the rays of a midday sun as if it had not been transplanted, while the ashes not only give strength to the plant, but have a tendency to keep away the grub that often commits such depredations among the young plants. Do not allow the sun upon the young plants during the process of transplanting, nor take up too many at a time. Let not over a half hour elapse between taking up and setting. Place them in a pan with care that you do not dirty nor break the leaves (as they are the lungs of the plant). Let the 22leaves get a pretty good size, as the grub has less time to work at them after they are transplanted.

Now, having stretched your line across the patch, take a sharpened hard wood stick, one and a half inches diameter, two and a half feet long, rather bluntly sharpened, that the dirt will not so easily fill the hole which it makes, and of hard wood that it will not dull easily. Now take your pan of plants in one hand, and stick in the other, sticking holes about two feet asunder, and dropping a plant to each hole, while a faithful boy who is honest to do his duty, and will not curl up the roots, setting just a little deeper than they were in the bed, and pinching the bottom of the hole as well as the top firmly about the root as he sets the plants, the neglect of which will result in the loss of many plants. In this way, in the middle of a hot day, I have set out four hundred plants per hour, when two successive hot days followed, and not over five per cent. of the plants even wilted from the effects of the sun’s rays. The ground was free from lumps and loose all about the plants the season through. When gathering time came those which were thus set out had nearly double the bulk of heads in comparison with those which were transplanted when the ground was wet.

The main reason was, the little rootlets had mellow ground to push out into all the season; while lumps and hard ground must abound, especially on loose ground, to some extent, when the ground is wet enough to transplant without the composition. But we will not stop to consider the convenience of transplanting in a dry day rather than a wet one, for what gardener has not been bedaubed with wet and mud from head to foot transplanting cabbage. So much then for our compost 23on the roots. With beets, tobacco, &c., this compost gives the same result.

Set the line off again two feet and proceed as before. It is not necessary to have them in rows but one way, that you may go among them with a horse, but that way have them precisely straight, the utility of which will become manifest when you come to cultivate. If the grubs eat them, sprinkle them every third morning while the dew is on with a little dust of ashes—say a teaspoonful. Where one is eaten off take the trouble to dig out the grub, or he is liable to take off several successive ones.

Tilling.—The plants should be hoed a little about the third morning after they are set out, and then scratch about them a little every week—if oftener it’s all the better. Stir the ground deeply, at least twice with the plow. Till them in the morning, though a bean never should be tilled in the morning. It is not necessary to go among them with a horse till the leaves become as large as your hand, when stir the ground deeply; deep culture is the great desideratum with any good crop. See to it that you strike the corner of your hoe down deeply beside the young plants, that the side rootlets may be unobstructed in their course. Early cabbage may be planted nearer than two feet.

Heading Cabbage.—The most important part, for a good crop, is yet to be performed. After having tilled them enough, you can yet make half difference in number and bulk of heads. You have hoed often and tilled deeply, which are essential, yea, indispensable to a good growth, while in the meantime the leaves can be forced to curl up and form the head, and not retard the 24growth, but, on the contrary, facilitate it. This is done by the use of another mixture of salt and plaster, two-thirds of the former to one of the latter. When the leaves are about half size, and the inner leaves just commence curling, sprinkle in each plant about a teaspoonful of the mixture when the cabbages are damp. In about two weeks sprinkle them again, adding with impunity a little more of the mixture. Thus, I estimate you will get $10 per day for your time in applying it, and $5 a quart for your mixture, for it is evident to my mind that the crop can thus be increased nearly half. If you choose to have every head lay close to the ground you can do so by commencing with this mixture early and applying frequently, and hilling up the dirt slightly. Let the quantity of the mixture generally be governed by the size of the plant. By a flat culture and withholding the mixture till the cabbage has its height, you may grow tall cabbage but not the bulk of heads.

Cabbage Lice.—During the seasons of 1864 and ’65, it being so dry, they were great pests. They are of a slate color, with many legs, greatly inclined to assemblages, and very hardy, for a severe frost does not seem to harm them. If they are very thick upon a head they will greatly deter it from heading, and, being very similar to stock lice, will cause the body to dwindle, and in many cases die from their effects. Wet weather seems to affect them more even than September frosts. However, in ordinarily wet seasons, I think they are not much to be feared. The only way I have ever mastered them was to sprinkle soot or fine ashes upon them when they were damp. The lye of the ashes is more than they can stand. The ashes should be finely sifted that no particles of fine coal, &c., will be found in the head.

25Gathering.—Let them stand (your winter heads) till you fear the ground will freeze so hard that you cannot pull them. Two inches of frost (that is, when the ground freezes two inches,) will not hurt the heads if they remain till the ground has drawn all the frost out. If they are pulled ere the moisture of the earth has done this complete they will not keep as well. Winter cabbage will continue to head till late in the fall, if the weather is not too severe.

Procure a crotchet stick with a long handle (willow wood is best, because the lightest) and run it under each head, lift it, and turn the head upside down, hitting the roots with one prong of the crotch to knock off the dirt, but not so hard as to sever the head from the stump. If you wish to retain the root this mode of pulling will be a great saving to the back, if you do not, cut out the heads as you like. But you need not expect them to keep hard long unless the root is retained. The leaves and stumps are excellent for stock, being green at a time when nearly all else is frost-bitten, and will go far in paying for raising the crop—a half acre bearing many side board loads of fine, fresh leaves, as refuse from the marketable heads.

Dig a trench the depth of the length of the stem, in which transplant the loose ones two heads in width and as closely as possible, lengthwise with the trench, placing a board on each side, simultaneously pressing the heads together slightly, and cover with straw and dirt securely from the mice and water. In Spring, if you have not pressed them too hard, these loose heads will all be hard and as fresh as in autumn. Yet it is a question in my mind whether they are not worth as much for the cow as to bury, considering the labor. Do not open 26them till the frost has left them, but do it as soon, lest they begin to rot. Like all buried vegetation they will not keep long after being exposed to the air. It will not do to transplant hard heads thus, for they are apt to burst. They should be turned bottom up in the trench and covered as before, in northern latitudes, but in southern latitudes a dirt covering is sufficient, leaving the roots to the air. They should never be thrown promiscuously in the cellar as they will wilt, and then they are poor food. For winter’s use put the roots in dirt in the cellar, guarding against mice and rats. A good plan is to put the roots in a tub filled in with dirt, then you have fresh cabbage at any time. In short, properly managed, cabbages are a very profitable crop, still they do not seem to be very exhausting to the soil. Like other garden crops rotation is necessary. Remember and not use hog manure for cabbage, lest they head in the ground.

Five acres enough.—Thus with five acres of good land well manured, and planted to carrots and cabbage, tilled and harvested according to the instructions of this pamphlet, any industrious and saving man, with, or without a family, may be on the high road to wealth. At the same time he is not a slave to manual labor, although it will be necessary for him to be alive spring and fall. There are no two crops of vegetables in more demand or more sure to yield a good return for labor. Ten years ago the first man who raised carrots to sell in my town found hard work to sell twenty bushels at the low price of twenty cents per bushel. Now, say for the last two years, a neighbor and myself have found a home market for one thousand bushels at 45 and 60 cents per bushel, although the number of inhabitants have but 27slightly increased. The demand is yearly increasing rapidly, till now many farmers think they cannot winter stock healthy (verily they cannot) without roots, and have concluded that carrots are the best root, containing the least per cent. of water, cleanest to feed, and the lightest to handle. Each property alone is very essential. A few fed to the horse each day gives him a slick coat, and that which gives a slick coat gives health, keeps him from catching cold, and saves much grain and hay. Store hogs can be wintered finely with carrots without any grain. A few fed to the cow, or a little juice squeezed into the cream, gives a rich yellowish color to the butter. Sheep fatten rapidly upon them. Cut up to the size of corn kernels and browned, they make an excellent coffee. Boiled, and forced through a cullender, they make a fine pie. For pickles and soup, they are excellent. In short, there is no vegetable that can be used more advantageously considering their cost than the carrot.

Here I need not discuss the value of cabbage, for the oldest inhabitant knows fully of its value as a vegetable, and with the two simple and accessible compositions, mentioned in the foregoing pages, used in transplanting and heading, they are very profitable, for with these two compositions, I aver that I will make twice the bulk of heads per acre to the man who does not use them, providing he does not bestow any more labor than I in tilling.

To make plenty of manure for these vegetables.—This is a great desideratum in raising vegetables. In gardening five acres I think I could make my own manure from that alone, and surely if I could have access to muck, I 28would plant say four acres to carrots and cabbage (say I will raise only these vegetables for my selling crop). Now, I should want for mine and family’s use, a horse, cow and hog, which I should keep in the following way: I would sow in drills a half acre of corn thickly for fodder, running through it a little with cultivator and hoe, to get some ears for to boil with some carrots for my hog, and some for other uses, perhaps. Now I shall have to buy but very little hay and grain. I have left one half acre for house, garden and some potatoes. Now I will keep my horse and cow in stable and yard. Put in twenty loads of muck under my stables, in my hog pen and barn yard, to catch those valuable juices which are generally lost (and these are the vitals of the soil), throwing in all my waste mould, and thereby make about forty loads of manure, which, applied to the five acres every year, will make it quite rich enough. How many industrious but poor men, with families, are cleaving to New York trying to start some little business in which they may prosper, but can get no chance from the fact that every conceivable opportunity is taken up. How much better to start out and lease (if they cannot buy) even a five acre plot, and go to raising vegetables according to the foregoing pages. Methinks the highway to success and wealth, with economy and health, would surely appear.

Every man his own Barometer.—In connection with gardening, it is very essential that we be able, with a degree of certainty, to foretell the weather, which, in nine times out of ten we may do about as accurately as the mercurial barometer, by philosophizing with nature’s laws, and certain time-honored observations called signs of the weather. I will notice some of the 29indications of a storm. The clouds look heavy and red in the east at early morn. The smoke settles to the ground. You smell what they are cooking in yonder house. The sun comes forth at sunrise, giving a white light, and soon disappears in the clouds. “Thunder in the morning, sailors take warning.” The fowls get on the fence and pick themselves. The ducks skip in the water. Stock is dainty about eating. “The fog runs up hopping—the rain comes down dropping.” Tobacco leaves are limber. Circle around the sun or moon—however, if stars can be seen in the moon’s circle the storm is in the distance. The sun draws water. A rainbow in the morning. If it rains when the sun shines, look for a three days’ rain, and of a surety the next day. The dog eats grass. The stones under the grass and in the cellar are moist. The outside of the tin pail or jug sweats, as we say. You observe the smallest cloud to magnify and grow large rapidly. The leaves of the poplar and cherry trees turn bottom up. Plenty of snakes are seen running about. The partridge drums. The mountains look black. You hear voices and noises unusually plain at a distance. The noise of the car is plain at a distance. Smoke ushers from the stove into the room. After a storm, if it clears in nighttime, we may expect a storm soon again. If the swallows fly near the ground we may expect a storm near at hand. Fish jump out of the water. Water boils away rapidly. The hair of stock looks smooth. We smell the skunk—smell the sweat of horses when riding along. The tree toad hollows. But the best indication of all is the following. If, upon blowing out your candle at night, the spark goes out quickly, prepare for a storm and vice versa. With the majority of these signs before us, and the wind in the South, we had better prepare for a storm. 30However, all signs fail in a drouth. But drouths are few and far between. It is not necessary in this place to philosophize upon these indications. Yet if the reader is somewhat posted in natural philosophy, he will have no difficulty in making these indications harmonize with the laws of nature.

With the supposition that we are now in the midst of a storm in summer, we will look about to notice some of the fair weather signs. The sky and sun look red at night. If it rains very early in the morning (not having rained during the night) generally look for a good day. “If it rains before seven it will clear before eleven,” is quite a reliable saying. Whirlwinds are almost sure signs of dry weather. Now the wind gets in the north, the fog moves southward, and the sun appears but not drawing water. The lark comes forth with her song, and every piece of nature’s handiwork seems, as it were, to throw off its shackles of solitude; cognizant that the king of day will reign, however terrible may have been the storm. We need not expect much rain when the moon is overhead, however severe may appear the storm. Thus, by a little careful observation, we may have a miniature barometer in reason’s temple, better to be relied upon than all the barometrical mechanism conceived by the wisdom of man.

Weather Sayings.—The direction of the wind at the vernal equinox, thus it will be most of the season. Long icicles indicate deep snows. Three frosts and then a rain. When the wild geese go north spring is about to open, a saying only worthy of notice above the 42d° of latitude. A dusty summer, a snowy winter, which will only appear in northern latitudes. If winter comes in quietly it will go out boldly. If it storms the first 31Sunday of a month it will storm every Sabbath but one, and so with any other day of the week. Choose full moons for fairs and concerts, &c. Our heaviest snows come from the northwest. If the first snow goes off with a rain, all will. So many fogs in February, so many frosts in May, and about the same day of the month. A winter fog will freeze a dog—that is, in a few days. A storm will not amount to much when the moon is overhead. A cold, wet May fills the barn with grain and hay. Thunder in spring is indicative of cold weather. If chanticleer crows on his roost at evening, there will be a change in the weather before morning. In winter, after a storm, the second clear day is the coldest. If grass grows in March, it will be frozen in May—applicable to northern latitudes. When the whippoorwill hollows, expect warm weather. The second of February is Candlemas day. So far as the sun shines in so far the snow will blow in—applicable to northern latitudes. If it clears off near two o’clock P. M., we may expect a fair day to-morrow, if at two o’clock A. M., we had better prepare for another storm. Make ready for a severe storm at the vernal and autumnal equinox. Weather calculations are subject to so many variations that no invariable rule or theory can be established. Yet with a close observation of the foregoing signs and sayings, we may predict the weather with quite a reliable certainty. With such a strict observance the farmer and gardener may often save himself much labor, and save his crops from the exposure of the storm.

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