120 Cabbages. [Part II, 



rows may be a foot apart, and the plants two inches 

 apart hi the rows. This will allow o\ hoeing, anfl here 

 the plants aviU grow very finel3\ Mind, a large cab- 

 bage plant, as well as a large turnip plant, is better 

 than a small one. All will grow, if well planted ; but 

 the large plant will grow best, and will, in the end, be 

 the finest cabbage. 



181. We have a way, in England, of greatly im- 

 proving the plants ; but, I am almost afraid to mention 

 it, lest the American reader should be frightened at the 

 bare thought of the trouble. When the plants, in tl:e 

 seed-bed, have got leaves about an inch broad, Ave take 

 them up, and transplant them in fresh ground, at about 

 four inches apart each icay. Here they get stout and 

 straight; and, in about three weeks time, we trans- 

 plant them again into the ground where they are to 

 come to perfection. This is called pricking out. When 

 the plant is removed the second time, it is found to be 

 furnished with new roots, which have shot out of the 

 butts of the long tap, or forked roots, which proceeded 

 from the seed. It, therefore, takes again more readily 

 to the ground, and has some earth adhere to in its pas- 

 sage. One hundred of pricked-out plants are always 

 looked upon as worth three hundred from. the seed-bed. 

 In short, no man, in England, unless he be extremely 

 negligent, ever plants out form the seed-bed. Let any 

 farmer try this method with only a score of plants. He 

 may do it with three minutes' labour. Surely, he may 

 spare three minutes, and I will engage, that, if he treat 

 these plants afterwards as he does the rest, and, if all 

 be treated well, and the crop a fair one, the three mi- 

 nutes will give him fifty pounds weight of any of the 

 larger sorts of cabbages. Plants are thus raised, then 

 taken up and tied neatly in bundles, and then bi-ought 

 out of Dorsetshire and Wiltshire, and sold in Hamp- 

 shirefor three-pence (about six cents) a hundred. So 

 thatit cannot require the heart of a lion to encounter 

 the labour attending the raising of a few thousands ot 

 plants. 



182. However, my plants, this year, have all gone 

 into the field from the seed-bed ; and, in so fine a 

 climate, it may do very well j only great care is ne 



