CABBAGE 



CABBAGE 



607 



Storing. 



Formerly the most common practice was to let the 

 plants stand until danger of hard freezing, then pulling, 

 allowing the roots to retain what earth they would, 

 but breaking off some of the most spreading leaves and 

 crowding the plants together (with heads all up or all 



709. Cabbage in winter storage in cabbage-house. 



down and at a uniform height), with earth packed 

 between them, in long shallow trenches that were 

 gradually covered with sufficient coarse straw or litter 

 to protect from severe freezing. A variation of this 

 method is to pull, leaving what roots and earth adheres, 

 and set as closely and level as possible in a shallow 

 cellar not over 3 feet deep, which after filling is covered 

 with a roof of boards, tarred paper and litter sufficient 

 to keep out rain and frost, and high enough in the cen- 

 ter to allow of handling the cabbage. It is essential to 

 success with either trench or cellar that they be located 

 where there is the least possible danger from standing 

 water, rats and other vermin, and as well protected as 

 possible from severe winds and cold. Advantages of 

 this method are that heads quite too soft to be salable 

 become hard and firm, and that cabbages so stored 

 retain to a remarkable degree their crispness and 

 flavor, and are thought by some to be even better 

 than when fresh from the field; but when taken from 

 the trench or cellar, they soon lose their crispness 

 and will not stand shipment so well as heads which 

 were trimmed before storing. A very common method 

 is to cut and partially trim the heads and place in 

 piles 4 to 6 feet high and broad, and of convenient 

 length, built over a board-covered trench which is 

 ventilated by open ends and tiles up through the cab- 

 bage, the piles being gradually covered and the open- 

 ings closed so as to prevent hard freezing (Fig. 708). 



In certain sections a large proportion of the cabbages 

 grown for late winter and early spring market are 

 trimmed and stored in bins or on shelves in frostproof 

 storehouses (Fig. 709). 



Diseases. 



Clubroot (Plasmodiophora brassicx). A soil parasite affecting 

 cabbage and other cruciferous plants. It thrives best in acid soils 

 and in some cases can be checked by a liberal use of lime, but its 

 presence in any field in destructive abundance is seldom suspected 

 until too late to save the crop. Planting cabbage or other crucif- 

 erous crops on such a field should not be repeated for several 

 years, during which it should have continued dressings of lime and 

 ashes. Care should be taken to secure uncontaminated soil for 

 seed-beds, and to destroy all affected plants before cattle have 

 access to them, as the disease may be carried by such refuse in the 

 manure from cattle who have eaten it. 



Wilt or Yellows, Black-rot, Stem-rot, Fusarium, Phoma. Infec- 

 tious diseases which sometimes become so abundant in certain 

 sections as to prevent the profitable culture of cabbage. They are 

 all distributed by means of contaminated seed, by manure from 

 cattle fed on diseased refuse, by soil carried on tools from affected 

 fields; distribution in this way should be carefully avoided. All 

 diseased plants should be destroyed by fire as soon as noticed. The 

 soil used in the seed-beds should be sterilized by live steam or 



soaked in a weak solution of formaldehyde (one part to 260 of water). 

 The seed should be soaked fifteen minutes in the weak solution of 

 formaldehyde, then rinsed in clear water and immediately planted. 



Animal pests. 



Flea beetles. The securing of vigorous plants is sometimes pre- 

 vented by the attacks of innumerable flea beetles, Phyllotreta, vit- 

 tata. This may be prevented by surrounding the beds with frames 

 made of 10- to 12-inch boards connected across the top with 2-inch 

 strips and then covered with 20- to 40-thread to the inch cheese- 

 cloth. This should be put on as soon as the seed is planted and 

 be removed, in order to harden the plants, four to six days before 

 they go to the field. 



Cut-worms. These are best guarded against by keeping the 

 field perfectly clear of all vegetation for six to ten days before 

 setting, then mix four quarts of bran meal or flour, one cup of molas- 

 ses or sugar, and two tablespoonfuls of pans green, with water 

 enough to make about the consistency of milk, and sprinkle on 

 twenty to fifty times its bulk of fresh-cut grass and scatter over 

 the field the night before setting the plants. 



Cabbage worm. Keep careful watch of the plants and if the 

 green worms appear in abundance and seem to reach full size, 

 sprinkle or spray the plants with kerosene and whale-oil soap emul- 

 sion, or paris green and water in the proportion of four gallons of 

 emulsion and one pound of paris green to fifty gallons of water. 

 After the heads are two-thirds grown, powdered hellebore, one ounce 

 to two gallons of water, should be substituted for the poisonous 

 paris green mixture. 



Root-knot (Nematodes). Although seldom very destructive 

 north of Philadelphia, this is often the unsuspected cause of failure 

 in the South, particularly of fall crops in light lands. The only 

 practical remedy is the avoidance of affected fields or sterilizing 

 the soil by freezing or live steam. 



Seed-breeding and -growing. Figs. 710, 711. 



It is only through careful study of the practical value 

 and correlation of varietal differences, the exercise of 

 great care in selection and growing of the plants, and 

 in the saving of the seed, that this or any vegetable can 

 be improved or even its present good qualities main- 

 tained. Under favorable conditions the plant is capable 

 of producing abundant seed, a single plant having been 

 known to yield thirty-five ounces, enough to plant 

 25 to 40 acres, but such yields are very exceptional, 

 and one-half to four ounces a plant is much more 

 common. Although botanically the plant is self-fertile, 

 when isolated it seldom yields much and often 

 no viable seed. It transmits very persistently through 

 many generations any distinct variation, but often 

 without expression, although such hitherto unexpressed 

 variations are apt to appear in the seed of self-fertilized 

 plants, so that such seed is frequently less uniform than 

 that from a field of plants of the same ancestry. At 

 least one of our popular varieties is made up of the 

 descendents of a single isolated plant, but it is a curious 

 fact that in the second and subsequent generations 90 

 per cent of the plants, although quite uniform, were 

 very different in character from that of the selected 

 individual from which they were descended. The 

 originator of one of our best varieties maintains that it 

 is essential to the production of the best seed of that 

 sort that seed-plants of very different types should be 

 set together, and by crossing they will produce seed 

 giving plants of the desired type. In spite of these 

 facts, it is thought that the practice which will give the 

 best results with t ... 



other plants is \Aj/ / v i , \\/ / 



equally desir- 

 able for the cab- 

 bage, and that 

 first a distinct 

 and well-defined 

 conception of 

 the varietal form 

 desired must be 

 formed and the 

 stock started 

 from the plant 

 or plants whose 

 seed most uni- 

 formly devel- 

 oped into plants 710. Wild cabbage plant in seed. Chalk 

 of the desired cliffs of England. 



