No. 4.] CABBAGE AND CAULIFLOWER. 



133 



such facilities are not available an area on a well-drained portion of 

 the field is prepared for the storage of the cabbage. The preparation 

 usually consists in leveling an area wide enough to allow about five 

 heads of cabbage to be placed, roots up, in a continuous row or belt, 

 three in the first layer and two in the second. The outer leaves are all 

 preserved and carefully wrapped around the heads as they are placed, 

 after which the whole is covered with a layer of straw or marsh hay, 

 and, as the weather increases in severity, with a slight layer of earth. 

 In the milder portions of the country this protection is employed for 

 the whole winter. Farther north the soil layer must be increased, and 

 where winters are severe storage houses should be used rather than 

 this primitive method of storing. 



If the crop is to be stored on a more extensive scale it may be placed 

 on a ventilated platform and piled in long ricks, and then covered with 

 rye straw and a layer of earth. 



Fig. 2. — Method of storing cabbage on a small scale in the north. 



Varieties. — The varieties of cabbage used by market gardeners in- 

 clude not only the Jersey Wakefield for extra early but a variety of 

 the early summer or sure-head type for midseason with some of the 

 Flat Dutch sorts as the main fall crop. 



Cabbage as a Farm Crop. 



Cabbage finds its most congenial habitat as a farm crop in the 

 northern tier of States, including those bordering on the Great Lakes, 

 the New England States, and, to a less extent, in Kentucky, Tennessee 

 and Missouri. New York grows almost three times the acreage of any 

 other State as a farm crop. It is this farm crop of cabbage which finds 

 its way to the sauerkraut factories, to the cities of both the north and 

 the south as the cool days of fall and early winter come on, and to the 

 large storage houses distributed through New York and Wisconsin. 



Soil. — The soil upon which cabbage is most extensively grown in 

 this region is either rich alluvial bottom land or the rich prairies of the 

 States west of New York and Pennsylvania. Cabbage is a bulky 

 product and usually does not sell for a very high price per ton, but the 



