530 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
new soil. Mr. Gregory closes his treatise with a description of the 
various drills and labor-saving machines used at the North in the eul- 
ture of this crop. 
Caspaces: How to grow them. A practical tréatise on cabbage culture tiving full 
details on every point, including keeping and marketing the crops. By James J. 
H. Gregory, introducer of the Marblehead ‘cabbage; 12 mo., pp. 72. Salem, Massa- 
chusetts, 1870. 
This little treatise gives plain and practical directions for the cultiva- 
tion of the cabbage, with its congeners, the cauliflower, broccoli, &c., 
describing the proper soil, the diseases of the plant, and its insect ene- 
mies, with a description of the most desirable kinds for either the table 
or live stock. Although it is a familiar plant in almost all gardens, 
there are many hints in Mr. Gregory’s book that will be new and useful 
to beginners, particularly in selecting the best varieties. 
The Winnigstadt variety, that makes a hard head under almost any 
condition, is recommended where the soil is light.- Deep fall: plow- 
ing is urged, that the frost of winter may disintegrate the soil. Almost 
any manure, except hog manure, will answer for cabbages, as barn ma- 
nure, rotten kelp, well-diluted liquid manure, night soil, guano, phosphates, 
wood ashes, fish, salt, glue-waste, hen-manure, all properly composted, 
or slaughter-house offal, and the richer they are in ammonia the better. 
Hog manure is thought to invariably produce the club-foot disease in 
cabbage, though Mr. Henderson, of New York, ascribes it to an insect 
that deposits its eggs in the soil; and in the maggot condition in which 
it appears the second year it attacks the roots, which become large and 
carious, ruining the plant. On this theory cabbages, cauliflowers, ruta- 
‘bagas, and turnips can be safely grown on the same spot only in alter- 
nate years. On soils containing a large amount of lime, this insect can- 
not exist to an injurious extent. 
In New England the largest cultivators for market drop the seed di- 
rectly where the plants are to stand, instead of the old mode of trans- 
planting from a hot-bed. Time is thus saved, risks incidental to trans- 
planting are avoided, and all the plants in the field start alike. Half 
a dozen seeds are scattered in each hill, so that the cut-worm has to 
depredate severely before he really injures the field. As the plants 
grow, the feeble ones can be thinned out, and where the seeds in an ad- 
joining hill have failed to vegetate, the deficiency can be supplied by the 
superfluous healthy plants. Four to six ounces of seed thus planted in 
hills are sufficient for an acre. 
Sprinkling wood ashes and air-slaked lime upon the young plants, 
while the leaves are damp with rain or dew, is an efficacious remedy for 
destroying the voracious fly, beetle, and flea that attack them as soon 
as they have broken through the soil, as well as for most other insects. 
Until the plants have a stump as large as a pipe-stem, they are subject 
to the ravages of the cut-worm, for which there seems to be no better 
remedy than sprinkling liberally wood ashes or air-slaked lime close 
about the stems of the plants. As this pest disappears about the mid- 
dle of June, cabbages that are planted late suffer but little from it. 
A cabbage-field should be stirred with the cultivator and hoe at least - 
three times during their growth; the oftener the better. In the com- 
paratively mild climate of England, cabbages are left unprotected in 
the fields during the winter months; and in the Southern States they 
are principally a winter crop. As we proceed north, a slight covering 
of litter on their heads is necessary. In New England they are placed 
in dry pits, several tiers deep, heads downward, about as thick as they 
will stand, covered with six inches of straw or coarse hay, with a roof 
