The Culture of Vegetables 



this is nearly true, and proves that we have a wonderful plant to deal 

 with ; but it is too good a friend of man to be treated, even in a 

 book, in an off-hand manner. The Cabbage may be called a lime 

 plant, and a clay plant ; but, like almost every other plant that is 

 worth growing, a deep well-tilled loam will suit it better than any 

 other soil under the sun. It has one persistent plague only. Not 

 the Cabbage butterfly ; for although that is occasionally a trouble- 

 some scourge, it is not persistent, and may be almost invisible for 

 years together. Nor is it the aphis, although in a hot dry season that 

 pest is a fell destroyer of the crop. The great plague is club or anbury, 

 for which there is no direct remedy or preventive known. But in- 

 directly the foe may be fought successfully. The crop should be 

 moved about, and wherever Cabbage has been grown, whether in a 

 mere seed-bed or planted out, it should be grown no more until the 

 ground has been well tilled and put to other uses for one year at 

 least, and better if for two or three years. There are happy lands 

 whereon the club has never been seen, and the way to keep these 

 clear of the pest is to practise deep digging, liberal manuring, and 

 changing the crops to different ground as much as possible. A mild 

 outbreak of club may generally be met by first removing the warts 

 from the young plants, and then dipping them in a puddle made of 

 soot, lime, and clay. But when it appears badly amongst the for- 

 ward plants, their growth is arrested, the plot becomes offensive, and 

 the only course left is to draw the bad plants, burn them, and give up 

 Cabbage growing on those quarters for several years. The question 

 as to why the roots of brassicaceous plants are subject to this scourge 

 on some soils, while plants from the same seed bed remain healthy 

 when transferred to different land, is deeply interesting, and the subject 

 is discussed in the chapter on ' The Pests of Garden Plants.' Here 

 it is sufficient to point out that the presence of the disease is generally 

 an indication that the soil is deficient in lime. A dressing at the rate 

 of from 40 to 80 or even 100 bushels of lime per acre may be necessary 

 to restore healthy conditions. The outlay will not be wasted, for lime 

 is not merely a preventive, it has often an almost magical influence 

 on the fertility of land. 



For general purposes Cabbages may be classified as early and 

 late. The early kinds are extremely valuable for their earliness, but 

 only a sufficient quantity should be grown, because, as compared 

 with mid-season and late sorts, they are less profitable. In the scheme 

 of cropping it may be reckoned that a paying crop of Cabbage will 

 occupy the ground through a whole year ; for although this may not 



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