CHAPTER XXVI. 

 CABBAGES. 



North and South, early and late, there is no crop of greater importance 

 to the market gardener than the cabbage crop. From their bulky nature it 

 was for years assumed that the cabbage crop was the one which the local 

 gardeners would always have control of. But rapid and cheap transportation 

 Jong ago settled this, and today the early cabbage crop is the leading crop of 

 the gardeners of the South in the spring, as the late crop is in the North 

 and in the mountain country, of the South. The method of producing the 

 early cabbage crop in the South is different from that pursued in the North. 

 All the way from Baltimore southward, on the Atlantic coast, the plants for 

 the early cabbage crop are set in November, on the south side of sharp ridges, 

 formed by the plow, three feet apart. In the North, the plants are produced 

 from seed sown about the same time as in the South, but when the Southern 

 gardener is setting his plants in the field, the Northern gardener is setting his 

 in cold frames to be protected by a sash during the winter, setting them so 

 thickly that an ordinary 3x6 foot hotbed sash will cover 1,000 plants. The 

 disaster that sometimes comes to the Southern gardener in the spring indi- 

 cates that it would be wise for him to carry some over in this way, to cure 

 losses that sometimes occur in the field. 



There is no crop, if we except cauliflower, that requires richer soil or 

 heavier fertilization than the early cabbage crop. The preparation should, as 

 with many other crops, begin the summer before setting. After some early 

 crop is off sow the land in cow peas. Cut these for hay, and at once prepare 

 the land by applying, after plowing, a ton per acre of the following mixture: 

 Acid phosphate, 900 pounds; fish scrap or tankage, 800 pounds; nitrate of 

 soda, 100 pounds, and muriate of potash, 200 pounds. Mix all these but the 

 nitrate of soda for fall application, and reserve that to be applied in the early 

 spring, as active growth begins. In the North, where the plants are wintered 

 over in frames, the whole ton can be applied at once, and in that case a winter 

 cover of rye should be sown after the peas or other legume have been mown 



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