18 GARDENING WITH BRAINS '^ 



liquid manure from a near-by horse stable, which 

 he diluted and used on them continually. The 

 variety of cabbage used was Sutton's Eariy, or 

 Jersey Wakefield. He did not let his plants reach 

 maturity, but cut them young. ''These cabbages," 

 he adds, "were entirely different in flavor from 

 those grown in the ordinary manner. Even in 

 Smithtown, Long Island, where I subsequently 

 raised them, they used to talk of my baby cab- 

 bages, and said they were the best they ever ate." 

 Baby cabbages, no doubt, would agree with 

 many who cannot eat of the full-grown heads. 

 The chief trouble is the method of cooking. 

 Cabbage should be steamed instead of boiled. 

 Boiled cabbage is very indigestible, sometimes 

 deadly. Steaming is also the best way to cook 

 potatoes, peas, carrots, etc. — for three reasons: 



(1) They are more digestible than when boiled; 



(2) Their flavor is richer; and (3) The mineral 

 salts, so important a factor in food, are saved. 

 It is too bad that the habit of serving cabbage 

 raw, as cold slaw, has gone out, for cabbage is 

 far more digestible raw than cooked. Better in 

 flavor, too. So are peas and carrots and com 

 and turnips and tomatoes and — as I only just 

 discovered accidentally — asparagus tips. 



BETTER RAW THAN COOKED 



The eating of these vegetables raw should be 

 encouraged, for cooking often destroys the 

 " vitamines " which abound in them and which 



