KITCHEN-GARDENING. 55 



tables than fruits, I would state further my views relative to the 

 Cabbage tribe. On New York Island, in the vicinity of the 

 city, it is customary with gardeners to cut their Cabbages 

 gradually as they are required for market, and often to leave 

 their roots standing. These by some are ploughed under, where 

 they not only feed, but generate their peculiar species of in- 

 sects. Some gardeners take their roots and leaves to the 

 cattle yard or dung-heap, and return them back to the garden 

 the ensuing season in the shape of manure. As a consequence 

 of such practice, good Cabbages are very seldom obtained, even 

 after a routine of other crops, for two or three years. 



EVIL OF DEEP PLANTING. 



With a view to illustrate the evil of deep planting, I would 

 observe further, that when Cabbage plants are transplanted in 

 proper season and on fresh soil, they generally prove uniformly 

 good ; whereas, if it should happen, as it sometimes does for 

 want of suitable weather, that the plants cannot be transplanted 

 until they get crooked and overgrown, so as to require deep 

 planting to support them in the soil, such plants, like diseased 

 Peach-trees, decay first in the bark, between earth and air, and 

 then, from being deprived of a natural circulation of the vege- 

 table juices, die and discharge their putrid matter in the earth, 

 to the destruction of such other plants as may be inserted in 

 their stead. I have frequently known a land of Cabbage 

 plants filled up half-a-dozen times, and the crop at last scarcely 

 worth gathering ; whereas could the plants have been set out 

 while dwarfish, and inserted their proper depth in the ground, 

 the cultivator would have been rewarded a hundredfold. 



The Brassica Rapa, or Turnip-Cabbage, produces its bulb 

 or protuberance on the stems above ground, immediately under 

 the leaves. It is eatable when young, or about the size of a 

 garden Turnip. The seed may be sown in April or May, and 

 the plants afterwards treated the same as Cabbage, only that in 

 earthing up the plants you must be careful not to cover the 



