' CABBAGE. 161 



if it be not then in abundance, constituting the 

 chief wealth and luxury of the garden. Make a 

 plantation on a warm border early in September, 

 from seedlings two months old. In ordinary alti- 

 tudes not one plant will die in- winter: in spring 

 some of them will show a disposition to run to seed; 

 but cut before they run, in the green leaf they are 

 excellent. Those planted out a month later will 

 succeed this first crop, and may be eaten in all 

 states, from the half blanched leaf to the solid boll. 

 The early cabbage is equally good in the end of 

 autumn, and for a considerable period of the winter; 

 and it is not a little preposterous, that the most 

 common season of its use is just that in which it is 

 least fit to be eaten. Manure should not be spared, 

 as the quality of tenderness is in proportion to the 

 vigour of growth. 



The late cabbage is the most valuable crop for 

 cows which the garden can produce. All summer 

 the leaves are inexhaustible, and then the huge solid 

 and savoury bolls cause the brutes in very gladness 

 to overflow with milk. Cover the cabbage plot 

 thick with the richest manure. Nothing on either 

 garden or farm will make a better return. But the 

 great thing is to have the plants right. Some 

 bunches are commonly purchased at the spring 

 fairs ; they come home yellow and pliant, having 

 just acquired, by decay, the proper tenderness and 

 saccharine flavour for the soft lip of the snail. 

 Planted in this state, they all vanish, or the field 



is wretched with blanks in a few days. More 



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