BRA 



OR, BOTANICAL DICTIONARY. 



BRA 



193 



however valuable they may be, are so much affected by the 

 vicissitudes of the season, aa to be a very uncertain provi- 

 sion ; tor how often does it happen, that after a year's fallow, 

 an ample :ind expensive manuring, great care to prevent the 

 ravages of the fly, slug, caterpillar, &c. unremitting attention 

 to the hoers, and altogether an expense of from three to five 

 pounds an acre, one sharp frost succeeding a wet season, in 

 the months of January or February, destroys all the farmer's 

 hopes, and leaves his flocks or bullocks destitute of food 

 when they want it most ; or reduces him to the necessity of 

 feeding them on hay, which perhaps is so dear as to devour 

 all his profits. Now, Cabbages are by no means so liable to 

 these accidents, for unless a long-continued drought succeed 

 the planting out, they are in a manner a certain crop, neither 

 frost nor snow will materially injure it ; and, as a farther 

 recommendation, it is more grateful to the consumers. The 

 dung of the cattle fed upon Cabbages is better, and more in 

 quantity, than when they are fed on Turnips. They are an 

 excellent preparation for Barley and Oats, as well as Turnips ; 

 or if they be, as some think, in a small degree inferior in 

 that respect, it ought to be considered, that the crop in itself 

 is more valuable, being worth from four to seven pounds an 

 acre. The accidents to which Cabbages are liable, are, first, 

 to be destroyed in the seed-bed by the beetle or fly, as well 

 as Turnips: but in this situation, these insects are easily 

 destroyed, by sowing wood-ashes, soot, &c. the moment 

 they appear ; and at the same time the plants are invigorated 

 by the dressing. They are, secondly, attacked both in the 

 seed-bed and by the caterpillar of the papitio brassic<e, or 

 Cabbage-butterfly ; this insect, though destructive to the 

 plants in general, is of little consequence in field-culture, 

 because it comes too late to injure the seed-bed ; and if the 

 plants prosper after they are set out, they become so strong 

 and numerous as to set it at defiance. An easy method of 

 arresting their progress, is to turn up the leaves, wherever 

 the white butterflies are observed to be busy about the 

 plants, and rub off the eggs, which they deposit along the 

 ribs of them, with the back of a knife, which operation 

 is performed in a very short time, whereas this picking of 

 the caterpillars, after they are hatched and dispersed, is very 

 tedious. The slug, that common enemy to all crops, attacks 

 the Cabbage, but is by no means so injurious to it as to the 

 . Turnip, because it stands up above his reach. From frost 

 Cabbages sustain little or no damage, if they be of a hardy 

 sort, a few of the outside leaves excepted. There is a 

 disease to which Cabbages are subject, which is, the roots 

 becoming swollen or knobbed, and the plant at the same 

 time smaller. It is occasioned by grubs, which are the larva 

 of flies, and is incident chiefly to such Cabbages as are sown 

 or planted for several years together on the same land. It 

 does not, therefore, affect the field-culture, unless the seed- 

 bed should be continued on the same piece. The two prin- 

 cipal objections to the field-culture of Cabbages are, the im- 

 poverishment of the land, and the difficulty of carting them 

 off. That it is an exhausting crop, is generally allowed, and 

 that it is much more so than Turnips; a gentleman, however, 

 who has given it repeated trials for twelve years, on a wet 

 clayey loam, declares himself fully assured, that it does not 

 impoverish the soil, but, on the contrary, meliorates and 

 cleans the land to which it is adapted, better than Turnips. 

 One acre of his Cabbages is often worth three, and 1 sometimes 

 four, acres of adjoining Turnips, on land five shillings an acre 

 better than his. The average crop of Cabbage is twenty- 

 six tons ; of Barley after it, thirty-seven bushels ; of Wheat, 

 thirty bushels ; ofOats, sixty bushels ; of Clover, when mown, 

 twice three tons from an acre : this course of crops is worth 

 VOL. i. 17. 



remarking. The Cabbages being disposed of, by carrying the 

 best to the cows and other cattle in the straw- yard, and' 

 folding ewes and lambs upon the remainder in March and 

 April ; the land is sown with Barley and Clover : the autumn 

 following, the Clover is broken up, and set with Wheat j the 

 year after, Oats are sown upon the Wheat Stubble ; and at 

 Michaelmas following, from twelve to fourteen loads of cqm r 

 post being ploughed in the May or June after, Cabbages are ' 

 again planted. Another great advantage of Cabbages is : by 

 their being planted on four-furrow work, the land lies drier, 

 and works better for Barley or Oats, than Turnip-land ; there 

 is always mould to sow in spring, after feeding off with sheep, 

 which is by no means the case in the same sort of land with 

 Turnips; if the season be wet when they are feeding, and sets 

 in dry in seed-time, it is not possible to get the seed in pro- 

 perly. Many are inclined to attribute the exhausting of land 

 by Cabbages, to the practice of leaving the stalks in the 

 ground,which throw out sprouts, and thus draw the land, when 

 the effect of the crops ought entirely to have ceased ; but if 

 we should allow, (what, however, some dispute,) that Barley 

 after Turnips is better, by eight bushels an acre, than after 

 Cabbages ; yet, if one acre of Cabbages be more valuable, as 

 is commonly thought, than two acres of Turnips, there will 

 be a gain upon the whole ; it is found, however, that to 

 ensure a good crop of Barley, the Cabbages should not be taken 

 off too late. As the crop cannot be fed upon the land by 

 heavy cattle, this occasions an expense to cart it off, which 

 also damages the land, by cutting it up and poaching it in a 

 dreadful manner. The Turnips, however, are most damaged, 

 because they are on straches nearly flat ; whereas the Cab- 

 bages being on three feet ridges, the poaching is chiefly in 

 the furrows, and no part of the crop which is left for the 

 sheep is injured . the carting also is done at half the expense, 

 and the food is cleaner for the stock. If broad-arched ridges 

 were used, all the carting being in the furrows alone, the 

 productive part of the field would be secure from injury, in 

 the case both of Cabbages and Turnips. The manner of cul- 

 tivating the Turnip-cabbage, and the Turnip-rooted Cabbage, 

 is, to sow the seeds in April, on a bed of light fresh earth, 

 and when the plants are an inch high, they should be trans- 

 planted into a shady border, at two inches distance every way, 

 kept clean from weeds, and watered till they have taken root - r 

 if the season should prove extremely dry, they should lie , ; 

 watered afterwards, every four or five days, to prevent the' 

 mildew. In the beginning of June, they should t>e trans- 

 planted where they are to remain, at two feet distance every 

 way, and watered till they have taken root. As.their stems 

 advance, draw the earth up to them with a hoe, but not too 

 high, so as to cover the globular part, which is eaten. To ' 

 cultivate these plants in the field, sow a pound of seed early 

 in March, for every three acres intended to be planted; pre- 

 pare the land by three or four earths, the first given at 

 Michaelmas ; before the last earth, manure as for Turnips : 

 finish the whole ready for planting by the first week in June. 

 The first ground-rain after that, set all hands to planting, 

 the rows two feet asunder, and the plants twelve inches. 

 apart in good land, and eighteen in poorer soils ; plough the 

 intervals three times, and keep the rows perfectly clear by 

 hand -hoeing. When the plants are to be taken up, plough 

 the rows without a coulter, and a round share with a blunt 

 edge. Every farmer should cultivate so much of this root, 

 as will ensure him provision for his cattle and sheep three 

 or four weeks in the latter end of the spring, unless he be 

 otherwise provided. The Swedish Turnip, or roota baga, 

 is of the same nature with those, and equally hardy ; the 

 root is sweet find firm, being nearly twice as heavy as one of 

 3D 



