CURRENT PUBLICATIONS IN RURAL ART. - 531 
of rough boards, and about a foot of earth. Repeated freezing and 
thawing, or excessive moisture or warmth, will cause them to rot; while 
the dry air of most cellars abstracts moisture from the leaves, causing 
them to wilt and injuring their flavor. 
For successive crops on a large scale for market, the following varie- 
ties are recommended: Early Wyman, Carter’s Superfine Karly, Little 
Pixie, Early Wakefield, Early Low Dutch, Early Winnigstadt,. Early 
Schweinfurt, Premium Flat Dutch, Stone Mason, Large Late Drumhead, 
Marblehead Mammoth Drumhead, Fottler’s Drumhead, Drumhead Sa- 
voy, and American Green Globe Savoy. It is well to note a fandamen- 
tal distinction between the Drumhead cabbage of England and that of 
this country. In England the Drumheads are coarse, and are raised 
almost wholly for stock, being very different from the tender, succulent 
varieties of Drumheads raised here. 
Cauliflowers, Brussels sprouts, and kale, in the selection of the soil 
and manure, and in cultivation, require generally the same treatment 
as cabbages. , 
How Crops Freep: A treatise on the atmosphere and the soil, as related to the nutrition 
of agricultural plants. With illustrations. By Samuel W. Johnson, M. A., professor 
of analytical and agricultural chemistry in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale 
College, chemist to the Connecticut State Agricultural Society, and member of the 
National Academy of Sciences. 12mo., pp. 375. New York: Orange Judd &Co., 1870. 
Professor Johnson’s able work, “‘How Crops Grow,” noticed in the 
annual report of this Department for 1868, has been received with 
great favor, not only in America, but in Europe. It has been repub- 
lished in England under the joint editorship of Professors Church and 
Dyer, of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester; and a transla- 
tion into German will soon appear, on the recommendation of Professor 
Von Liebig. In this new work, “How Crops Feed,” designed as the 
complement and companion of the former, the author has digested the 
cumbrous mass of evidence in which the truths of vegetable nutrition 
lie buried beyond the reach of ordinary inquirers, and has set these 
truths forth in proper order and plain dress for their legitimate uses. 
_Under the general divisions of the atmosphere as related to vegeta- 
tion, and of the soil as related to vegetable production, Professor John- 
son discusses the atmosphere as physically related to vegetation ; also the 
origin and formation of soils; their definition, classification, and physi- 
eal character; the soil as a source of food to crops, describing the in- 
gredients the elements of which are of atmospheric origin, and such as 
are derived from rocks. He says: 
No study can have a grander material significance than the one which gives us a 
knowledge of the causes of the fertility and barrenness of soils; a knowledge of the 
means of economizing the one and overcoming the other, and of those natural laws 
which enable the farmer so to modify and manage his soil that all the deficiences of 
the atmosphere or the vicissitudes of climate cannot deprive him of a suitable reward 
for his exertions. 
In remarking on the formation of nitrogenous compounds in the at- 
mosphere, the fact, known to the best farmers, is stated, that certain 
crops are especially aided in their growth by nitrogenous fertilizers, 
while others are comparatively indifferent to them. Thus— 
The cereal grains and grasses are most frequently benefited by applications of nitrate 
of soda, Peruvian guano, dung of animals, fish, flesh, and blood manures, or other mat- 
ters rich in nitrogen. On the other hand, clover and turnips flourish best, as a rule, 
when treated with phosphates and alkaline substances, and are not manured with ani- 
mal fertilizers so economically as the cereals. It has, in fact, become a rule of practice 
in some of the best farming districts of England, where systematic rotation of crops 
is followed, to apply nitrogenous manures to the cereals, and phosphates to turnips. 
The foliage of clover, cut green, and of root crops, maintains its activity until the 
