CABBAGES 



Mind, a large cabbage^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 improving 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 the seed-bed, have got leaves about an inch 

 broad, we take them up, and transplant them in fresh ground, 

 at about four inches apart each way. Here they get stout and 

 straight : and, in about three weeks time, we transplant 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 it in its passage. 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 from 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 minutes 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 brought out of 

 Dorsetshire and Wiltshire, and sold in Hampshire for three-pence 

 (about six cents) a hundred. So that it cannot require the heart 

 of a lion to encounter the labour attending the raising of a few 

 thousands of 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 ; 

 only great care is necessary to be taken to see that they be not too 

 thick in the seed-bed. 



183. As to the preparation of the land, as to the manuring, as 

 to the distance of the rows from each other, as to the act of planting, 

 and as to the after culture, all are the same as in the case of trans 

 planted Swedish Turnips ; and, therefore, as to these matters, 

 the reader has seen enough in Part I. There is one observation 

 to make, as to the depth to which the plant should be put into the 

 ground. It should be placed so deep, that the stems of the out 

 side leaves be just clear of the ground : for, if you put the plant 

 deeper, the rain will wash the loose earth in amongst the stems of 

 the leaves, which will make an open poor cabbage ; and, if the 

 plant be placed so low as for the heart to be covered with dirt, the 

 plant, though it will live, will come to nothing. Great care must, 

 therefore, be taken as to this matter. If the stems of the plants 

 be long, roots will burst out nearly all the way up to the surface 

 of the earth. 



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