■J 80 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZLNE. 



water with a small lump of lard— is eaten by the poorer 

 classes of Neapolitans, who cannot afford macaroni. 



It is a joke in some of the foreign provinces of Rus- 

 sia, that the three mightiest gods of the Muscovite are 

 Sshin, Tshai, and Shtshce — that is, rank, tea, and cab- 

 bage-soup, la fact, this same shtshee, or cabbage-soup, 

 is the staff of life, from the German frontier to Kamst- 

 chatka. Russian soldiers — hear it, ye Britons, who feed 

 on beef! — arc nourished mainly on this cheap, and, we 

 should deem it, innutritious food, which is thus com- 

 pounded : Six or seven heads of cabbage are chopped 

 up, and mixed with half-a-pound of barley-meal, a 

 quarter of a pound of butter, a handful of salt, and two 

 pounds of mutton cut into small pieces, with the addi- 

 tion of a jug of quass. With the very poor, of course, 

 the meat and butter form no part of the mess ; with the 

 rich, other materials lend it a high flavour. 



Fasting shtshee is made of fish instead of meat, and 

 oil instead of butter. " Botvinya" is the ordinary sum- 

 mer food ; it is a kind of cold shtshee. Cold quass, raw 

 herbs, cranberries, chopped cucumber, and fish, cut into 

 small lumps, are its ingredients. 



The cabbage is very rich in gluten. The leaves by 

 boiling are converted into a palatable food, without 

 sensibly diminishing its nutritious quality. Professor 

 Johnston found that the dried matter of boiled cabbage 

 gtill contained 33 per cent, of gluten. When eaten fre- 

 quently, however, and in large quantity, they have, in 

 common with nearly all kinds of food which are rich iu 

 gluten, a costive or binding tendency upon the human 

 constitution ; hence the propriety of eating them with 

 fat or oily food. 



There is a dish common in Ireland under the name of 

 kol-cannon— a mixture of potatoes and boiled cab- 

 |)age beaten together, with a little pork fat, salt, and 

 pepper. 



There are more ways to cook a fine cabbage than to 

 boil it with bacon, and yet few seem to comprehend that 1 

 there can be any loss in cooking it, even in this simple 

 way. Two-thirds of the cooks place cabbage in cold , 

 water and set it to boiling ; this extracts all the best ] 

 juices, and makes the pot liquor a soup. The cabbage j 

 head, after being washed and quartered, should be drop- \ 

 ped into boiling water, with no more meat than will just ! 

 season it. Cabbage may be cooked to equal broccoli or 1 

 cauliflower. Take for instance, a firm, sweet head, cut I 

 it into shreds, lay it in salt and water for six hours. 

 Then place it in boiling water until it becomes tender — ' 

 turn the water off, and add sweet milk ; when thoroughly ' 

 done, take it up ip a colander, and drain. Now season j 

 with butter ^nd pepper, or, if you like, with a glass of ' 



wine, and a little nutmeg grated over, and you will have 

 a dish fit to eat. 



What would the German do without his sauer-kraut 

 or fermented cabbage ? The growth of this vegetable 

 on the continent, specially for making this preparation, is 

 very considerable. In Alsacp, cabbages are extensively 

 cultivated, and grow to an enormous size, and a great 

 quantity of choucroute or sauer-kraut, is made there 

 for export to Strasburg and Germany. Every German 

 family stores up, according to its size, one or more large 

 casks of it. October and November are the busy months 

 for the work, and huge white pyramids of cabbage are 

 seen crowding the markets ; while in every court and 

 yard into which an accidental peep is obtained, all is 

 bustle and activity in the concocting of this national food, 

 and the baskets piled with shredded cabbage have been 

 likened to "mountainsof green-tinged froth or syllabub." 



In Wiesbaden, one hundred fine heads of white cab- 

 bage for making sauer-kraut may generally be had in 

 the season for about 3s. The cabbages are cut into 

 shreds with an instrument not unlike a large inverted 

 carpenter's plane. They are placed in a four-inch layer 

 in a cask ; this is strewed with salt, whole pepper, 

 and a small quantity of salad oil. A man with clean 

 wooden shoes then gets into the cart and treads the whole 

 together, till it is well mixed and compact. Another 

 layer is then added, which is again trod down, and so on 

 until the cask is entirely filled. The whole is then sub- 

 jected to heavy pressure, and allowed to ferment ; M'hen 

 the fermentation has subsided, the barrels in which it is 

 prepared are closed up, and it is preserved for use. 



White cabbage, called pih-tsae, and not unlike the 

 Roman lettuces, constitutes the principal food of every 

 class in China, and is said to be really delicious. It is 

 generally understood that there is another important 

 commercial use for the cabbage, of which the young 

 smokers of cheap cigars could tell us something. 



There is a cigar merchant in the Minories, who de- 

 clares that he had a cabbage so large that he got two 

 boxes of "genuine Havannahs" out of it, besides two 

 or three dozen penny Pickwicks. He says the cabbage 

 was about the best pull he ever had, for it brought him 

 in ^'3 15s. 6d., and, if he could have sold the cigars at 

 the West End, he thinks he might have fairly doubled 

 that sum. 



After the narration of these facts, who shall despise 

 the cabbage ? Even the ninth-part of a man will stand 

 up on his bench in its defence. All hail to the cabbage ! 

 may its shadow never grow less, and long may it con- 

 tinue to furnish agreeable and nutritious food for man 

 and beast t 



IRELAND AND IRISH FARMING. 



I now come to a very important part of my subject : i feeding of stock ; the best varieties of grain and roots 

 to attempt showing in what consists the best system of to cultivate; the best kind of stock to keep for profit or 

 cottage husbandry— that is, I desire to point out the sale, with such collateral advantages as in the course of 

 best courses of cropping and order of management I the discussion of these subjects may arise out of them, 

 suited to small farms; the best system of grazing or | In 1856 there were, as I have already said, 179,931 



