Merino-Ryelatid Breed of Sheep. 501 



In this method, under moderately favourable circumstances of soil and season, 

 cabbages may be obtained fit for use in tlie months of February, March, April, 

 and even the beginning of May, which shall weigh from 5 to 25 lb. each. If the 

 average be only 8 lb., and the plants be allowed a square yard each, the number of 

 yards being 4840, the total weight per acre will be 1 7 ton 5 cwt. 



To the ignorant reader all the work which I have described may appear very 

 difficult, toilsome, and expensive. This, however, is by no means the case. The 

 seed-bed lies in a small compass, so that 40 perch of ground will be amply sufficient 

 to provide plants for the full stocking of 8 or 10 acres. The labour is conse- 

 quently small, and the operations are neither nice nor expensive ; but whatever 

 they may be, let the reader weigh them against the result, and consider what com- 

 parison they bear with the total want of supply for several hundred ewes and, 

 lambs, or other stock, which their adoption would, with moral certainty, support in 

 health, comfort, and rapid growth. 



There is another mode of obtaining a crop of spring cabbages. They are to be 

 sown, in the months of March or April, in rows, three feet, or three feet and a half 

 asunder, on earth turned over fresh dung, in the manner before-mentioned. As 

 the plants appear, they must be thinned out, so as to be left at the distance of two 

 and a half, or three feet, from each other in the rows; after which, they are to be 

 hoed, and earthed-up in the common well-known methods. This practice has 

 certainly many important advantages. The season of sowing affords a good chance 

 of securing the young plants against insects; and all the hazard and expencc of 

 transplantation, as well as the inconvenience of that operation, and of hoeing about 

 Midsummer, when all our strength is barely sufficient for hay-making, are entirely 

 avoided. If this method docs not dispose the plants to become long and tliin, 

 rather than low and spreading, which latter habit they have after one or more 

 transplantations, I know of no disadvantages to counteract its benefits, and there- 

 fore should prefer it, whenever land can be obtained early enough for the purpose. 



rative trial of this measure. Upon the greater part of two acres of well dunged land, I planted 

 drum-head cabbages just before the extremely hot and dry weather which occurred at the Isttcr 

 end of May, or the beginning of June. Each plant was once well watered, just as it was put into 

 the ground. They immediately took root, and continued growing very vigorously through the 

 whole of the hot weather which followed. As soon as the weather changed, I finished the plant- 

 ing ; but the later plants have never reached, and probably never will reach, two-thirds of the 

 size of the former. The crop is, on the whole, the best I have ever seen. 



