58 CABBAGES, HOW TO GROW THEM, ETC. 



head. As in the cabbage districts of the North little or 

 no use is made of this prolific after growth, it is worse 

 than useless to suffer the ground to be exhausted by it ; 

 the stump should be pulled by the potatoe hoc as soon 

 as the heads arc marketed. 



When cabbages arc planted out for seed, if for any 

 reason the seed shoot fails to push out, and at times 

 when it does push out, line sprouts for greens will start 

 below the head ; when the stock of these sprouts be- 

 comes too tough for use, the large leaves may be stripped 

 from them and cooked. I usually break off the tender 

 tops of large sprouts, and then strip off the tenderest of 

 the large leaves below. 



CABBAGE FOR STOCK. 

 No vegetable raised in the temperate zone, Mangold 

 Wurtzel alone excepted, will produce as much food to the 

 acre, both for man and beast, as the cabbage. I have 

 seen acres of the Marblehead Mammoth drumhead which 

 would average thirty pounds to each cabbage, some spec- 

 imens weighing over sixty pounds. The plants were 

 four feet apart each way, which would give a product of 

 forty tons to the acre ; and I have tested a crop of Fot- 

 tler's that yielded thirty tons of green food to the half 

 acre. Other vegetables are at times raised for cattle feed, 

 such as potatoes, carrots, ruta bagas, mangold wurtzels ; 

 a crop of potatoes yielding four hundred bushels to 

 the acre at sixty pounds the bushel would weigh twelve 

 tons ; a crop of carrots yielding twelve hundred bush, 

 els to the acre would weigh thirty tons ; and ruta bagas 

 sometimes yield thirty tons, and mangolds as high as 

 seventy tons to the acre. I have set all these crops at a 

 high capacity for fodder purposes ; the same favoring 

 conditions of soil, manure, and cultivation that would 

 produce four hundred bushels of potatoes, twelve him- 



