CABBAGES 207 



for all through the growth of the crop a plentiful supply of mois- 

 ture is essential to success. With a moist and fertile soil and 

 clean and rapid culture, it is easy, in the South to get fine cabbages 

 to head about Christmas, and we never have any weather to stop the 

 growth of the crop much before this date. Headed earlier they will not make 

 large heads and will not keep in winter. Late sowing, rich, moist soil and 

 clean culture will make good cabbages in the South, but for early fall cab- 

 bages the Southern coast cities will still have to depend on the North and the 

 mountain country of the South. In the fertilization of the cabbage crop, 

 early or late, the important factors are nitrogen and phosphoric acid. Potash 

 is of far less importance than these, though a fair percentage is needed. 



There are a great many varieties of winter cabbages offered by seedsmen 

 under special names, but they all belong to the two classes of Drumhead or 

 Flat Dutch, except the Savoys, which form a peculiar class to themselves. 

 Of course the Southern, or Georgia collard, is a distinct species. It is the 

 survival of the fittest in the South, as it can take care of itself and grow under 

 conditions that would be destructive to the heading cabbages. No Southern 

 garden seems complete without the collard, for it is always ready to come in 

 and fill a possible failure of the cabbage. Then, too, as we have said, it is by 

 no means a mean vegetable when properly frosted and blanched in winter, 

 and in many country districts of the South they have so long been accustomed 

 to the absence of headed cabbages in winter that they assume that the collard 

 is better. We began some years ago to make the effort to develop a good head- 

 ing strain of the collard, and after a while we hope to be successful and to 

 get a collard that will head as hard and as certainly as the cabbage, of which 

 it is merely a variety. One of the newest winter cabbages is the Danish Ball 

 Headed, which, under favorable conditions, makes the most solid head of any 

 cabbage with which we are acquainted. Whether it will be suitable to South- 

 ern conditions or not we are as yet unable to say. Our main dependence for 

 many years past has been the Prize Flat Dutch, of which every seedsman 

 offers his own particular strain. Of the Drumhead class the Prize Short 

 Stemmed Drumhead, and the Stonemason are both excellent, and those who 

 have grown Maule's Surehead claim that it is unsurpassed. Of the Savoys 

 the Drumhead Savoy has always done best for us. The early Savoys are very 

 uncertain in the South in our experience. 



