1 62 GARDEN FARMING 



to be inferred, this wild plant has no head comparable with that 

 which is characteristic of our improved forms. 



Of these four plants, the true cabbage, known to botanists as 

 Brassica oleracea, var. capitata, is undoubtedly the most valuable 

 and the most extensively cultivated. It is grown as a market-garden 

 crop, as a truck crop, and as a general farm crop. It is handled in 

 many ways, being grown as an early spring crop, as a summer and 

 fall crop, and in some localities as a winter crop. There are also a 

 great number of different forms and varieties of cabbage, differing 

 in color and conformation of head and leaf, each type possessing 

 some peculiar merit which gives it prestige in a particular market. 

 Cabbage also has an advantage over the other members of the 

 family to which it belongs in that it can be kept longer and is 

 capable of being put to a greater variety of uses. All these features 

 conspire to give the heading cabbage its exalted position in the 

 cabbage family. 



CABBAGE AS A MARKET-GARDEN CROP 



Cabbage as a market-garden crop is handled at various seasons 

 and in different ways, according to the locality in which it is grown. 

 North of the latitude of New York City very early cabbage is culti- 

 vated in one of the following ways : The seeds may be sown in 

 September in the open or in cold frames, the young plants being 

 brought on slowly until freezing weather, when they should be about 

 2\ or 3 inches high. It is well to transplant the seedlings from the 

 bed in the open to the cold frames about the first or second week 

 in October, in order that they may become thoroughly established 

 before freezing weather sets in. In the frames they should stand at 

 intervals of I inch in rows 2 or 3 inches apart. When cold nights 

 come, sash should be placed over the frames in order to prevent hard 

 freezing of the plants ; and when the severe winter weather sets in, 

 board shutters, straw mats, or a covering of hay over the frame should 

 also be used to prevent hard freezing. Cabbage plants which have 

 been carefully hardened will not be killed by severe freezing, but 

 if they are once frozen it is necessary so to cover the frames that 

 they cannot thaw and freeze again. It is the alternate freezing and 

 thawing that is so harmful. It is therefore necessary during cold 



