98 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to ascertain the cause, but have never been able to satisfac- 

 torily explain the reason why. 



Dr. Cragin of Athol. I would like to tell the experience 

 I have had in raising cabbages. We oftentimes can learn 

 as much from our failures as from our successes. I have 

 frequently lost my crop by planting my cabbages on the 

 same ground in successive years. I then tried corn land 

 with a similar result, although not as bad. Two years ago 

 I employed a young man who had been in the employ of a 

 market gardener in my neighborhood, and when I spoke to 

 him about cabbages he says, '*I want a new piece of land 

 for cabbages." I told him he could have a piece of a corn 

 field. He says, "If you want to raise cabbages on such 

 land as that you can do it; I don't want to." "Well," I 

 said, " take such a piece as you please." He went into a 

 pasture that I suppose had not been ploughed for fifty years, 

 ploughed up a piece for ensilage corn, selected the poorest 

 of it and put out from two to three hundred cabbage plants. 

 I never saw a handsomer growth of cabbages in my life. I 

 had so many that I did not know what to do with them. 

 I believe he lost but one plant in the whole. He said in 

 explanation of it that the cabbage invarial)ly demands new 

 land. I have tried the same experiment since in raising 

 cabbage in my garden, which is shifted from one locality to 

 another, but on old land, and I have been very successful. 

 I am never troubled with the club-foot or the maggot there. 

 I occasionally have a man who insists upon using the old 

 garden for cabbages, and when that occurs we seldom get 

 enough for our own use, and are obliged to buy from our 

 neighbors. 



Mr. Smith of West Springfield. I have been raising 

 cabbages to the extent of several acres for a number of 

 years, and each year it has beome more and more difiicult 

 to raise early cabbages ; but with late cabbages I think we 

 have never had a failure. We always put our late cabbages 

 on old land, taking care, however, that neither turnips nor 

 cabbages have been grown on that land for three or four 

 years. That is, every three or four years we think we can 

 reasonably expect a good crop of cabbage from a piece of 

 land. We plough in horse manure early (I don't want hog 



