368 THE CABBAGE CROP. 



out, as is seen in the turnip or the kohl-rabi. There is a 

 vast number of varieties of the cabbage cultivated as culi- 

 nary vegetables. On the farm we have comparatively 

 but few, and these may, for all agricultural purposes, be 

 classed under two divisions the "compact" and the "open- 

 headed" varieties of the former of which, the "drumhead" 

 or common cattle cabbage is the best- known representa- 

 tive; while of the latter the "thousand-headed" variety is 

 that which is, perhaps, best calculated for farm purposes. 



Although the cabbage is not very particular as to the 

 class of soil in which it is planted, provided it be well 

 supplied with good farmyard dung, or other rich organic 

 manure, still it always thrives better in the heavier 

 descriptions of soil than in the lighter; rich loams and 

 alluvial soils being, perhaps, those best suited for its 

 powers of development. Owing to the mode of cultivation, 

 by transplantation from a seed-bed, it may be grown suc- 

 cessfully on a stronger class of soils than it would be safe 

 to attempt to sow Swedes on; especially as at the time 

 of maturity they (the drumheads) are rarely or never fed 

 off on the land, and are lifted with less injury to the field than 

 would be occasioned by feeding off, or even pulling and 

 trimming a crop of Swedes on such soils at the same 

 period of the year. On the humous soils of the fen dis- 

 tricts of Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Lincoln- 

 shire, large crops of cabbages are indeed grown; but in all 

 soils the admixture of a certain proportion of clay exhibits 

 a very beneficial action on the growth of this plant, pro- 

 bably, no doubt, in a great degree owing to the reasons 

 adduced (page 282) in respect to the growth of the allied 

 species, the turnip. 



The cabbage is essentially a fallowing or cleaning crop ; 

 and, at the same time, owing to the mode of cultivation 

 adopted, it may be looked upon as an intermediate or "catch 

 crop," as it may with advantage, in most instances, occupy 



