130 



Cabbages as Food for Hogs. 



Vol. VI. 



To ihe Editor of the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Cabbages as Food for Hogs. 



Sir, — I do not pass a day without gaining 

 an accession to my stock of agricultural ex- 

 perience. On a late visit to a friend, who is 

 remarked by all the neighbourhood as being 

 a first-rate manager, I found that his crops 

 of all kinds were very superior to those around 

 him, although he has not greater facilities for 

 improvement than others, but the secret is, 

 he does not permit any crop to grow that he 

 does not plant; and his fields reminded me 

 of Mr. Coke's of Norfolk, who is said to offer 

 a premium to any one who will find a weed 

 in his crops. His corn is a remarkably large 

 crop, some of the ears measuring 15 inches 

 in length and counting twelve rows, while 

 the headlands of his corn-field are loaded 

 with a crop that I should like to ascertain the 

 weight and value of At the last working of 

 the crop, he manured the headlands, plough- 

 ed and harrowed them carefully, and planted 

 them with the largest kind of Drum-head 

 Cabbage, and at the present time he has a 

 magnificent crop, on that portion of his land 

 which his neighbours generally appropriate 

 to a very different puspose, namely, the pre- 

 servation of seed-weeds for their next year's 

 supply. The cabbage-crop I prefer to the 

 more usual one of turnips, for by sowing a 

 small quantity of the right kind of cabbage- 

 seed on a rich bed of earth, and transplanting 

 the seedlings, you are sure of obtaining a 

 quantity of the finest plants of the sort and 

 size which you prefer, and just at the mo- 

 ment when they are required to be put out; 

 and that work may be delayed until the wea- 

 ther is suitable, and may be performed after 

 a shower, the plants remaining until then in 

 the seed-bed, perfectly safe and in a growing 

 state. And then, cabbage-plants are so 7nuch 

 easier kept clean than a crop of turnips, par- 

 ticularly if these are broadcast, which is gen- 

 erally the custom of sowing on headlands; 

 while the difference in the weight and value 

 of the crops is indeed great. 



Cabbages are used very extensively in 

 England as food for milk cows, particularly 

 for the London dairies ; they are taken from 

 the ground and stripped of some of their outer 

 leaves, which arc fed to the young cattle on 

 the farm, while the cabbages, cut very short 

 at the stems, are packed very closely in wag- 

 ons and conveyed many miles to the city, 

 where they continue perfectly sweet and 

 for a long time, and are fed with brewers' 

 grains to the cows, which are uniformly of 

 the short-horn breed. Cabbages are also used 

 as food for hogs, being cut up and boiled for 

 a considerable time, with a small quantity of 

 meal ; and in this state, perhaps there is no 

 food more nourishing, and certainly none so 



cheap and convenient for use. It is conjec- 

 tured, that when the custom of cooking food 

 for hogs becomes general, cabbages will be 

 found more nutritive and far more profitable 

 than almost any other food ; and the expense 

 of cooking with suitable apparatus will be 

 most trifling, the fuel necessary for the pur- 

 pose being small in quantity, when applied to 

 boilers properly constructed, it being recom- 

 mended to have two, placed side by side, heat- 

 ed by one fire and working into the same 

 chimney ; leaving the cooked food in the first 

 boiler closely covered, and feeding from thence, 

 instead of emptying its contents into a re- 

 ceiver; by which means the hogs will get 

 their food in a warm state during the time of 

 feeding; the second boiler being prepared the 

 while, and the food cooked in it while the 

 first is being emptied by feeding out. It has 

 been ascertained, that by these means hoga 

 may be kept up and fed during their whole 

 lives, at as cheap a rate as they can be while 

 running abroad, their increase in weight be- 

 ing much greater, and the quality of the meat 

 very superior. The meal is recommended to 

 be that produced from grinding the cob with 

 the corn, which, by boiling gently with the 

 cabbages for many hours, is found to form a 

 most luxurious treat. 



A proposal is here offered for the preserva- 

 tion of cabbages through the winter ; would 

 those who are conversant with a better mode, 

 be pleased to make it known through the 

 pages of the Cabinet? Let the cabbages be 

 cut in fine and dry weather, and after strip- 

 ping off a few of their outer leaves, lay them 

 singly upon straw — which must be clean and 

 dry — on the floor of a barn or outhouse, well 

 secured from the rain ; upon these lay more 

 straw, and then a line of cabbages, and so 

 continue to any height you may choose. The 

 mode of burying them head downward in the 

 earth, appears, to say the least, a troublesome 

 and dirty business, by which their outer leaves 

 become corrupted, and oftentimes a portion 

 of the cabbages also. Vir. 



riiiladcliiliia, 28 Oct., 1841. 



Tenants on Leases. — The tenants of Lord 

 Panmure, Forfarshire, Scotland, have long 

 leases, and nowhere can a more industrious 

 and thriving body of men be found : but it is 

 not the written — it is the heartfelt under- 

 standing between landlord and tenant that 

 constitutes the true lease and establishes that 

 confidence which promotes improvements. 

 Lord Panmure's motto — and which he in- 

 variably signs on every new lease with his 

 own hand, is. Live and let live. 



Without hope, every evil may be feared, 

 but no good can reasonably be expected. 



