290 TALKS ON MANUEES. 



maturely to seed. Furthermore, I told him I thought if he would 

 sow a little superphosphate of lime with the seed, it would greatly 

 stimulate the early growth of the lettuce. 



As I have said before, superphosphate, when drilled in. with the 

 seed, has a wonderful effect in developing the root-growth of the 

 young plants of turnips, and I thought it would have the same 

 effect on lettuce, cabbage, cauliflowers, etc. 



" But," said he, " it is not roots that I want, but heads." 



" Exactly," said I, " you do not want the plants to follow out 

 their natural disposition and run up to seed. You want to induce 

 them to throw out a great abundance of tender leaves. In other 

 words, you want them to 4 head.' Just as in the turnip, you do not 

 want them to run up to seed, but to produce an unnatural develop- 

 ment of ' bulb.' " 



Thirty years ago, Dr. Gilbert threw out the suggestion, that 

 while it was evident that turnips required a larger proportion of 

 soluble phosphates in the soil than wheat ; while wheat required a 

 larger proportion of available nitrogen in the soil, than turnips, it 

 was quite probable, if we were growing turnips for seed, that then, 

 turnips would require the same kind of manures as wheat. 



We want exceedingly rich land for cabbage, especially for an 

 early crop. This is not merely because a large crop of cabbage 

 takes a large amount of plant-food out of the soil, but because 

 the cultivated cabbage is an artificial plant, that requires its food 

 in a concentrated shape. In popular language, the plants have to 

 be " forced." 



According to the analyses of Dr. Anderson, the outside leaves of 

 cabbage, contain, in round numbers, 91 per cent of water ; and the 

 heart leaves, 941 per cent. In other words, the green leaves con- 

 tain 3 per cent more dry matter than the heart leaves, 



Dr. Vcelcker, who analyzed more recently some "cattle-cab- 

 bage," found 89 per cent of water in the green leaves, and 83| 

 per cent in the heart and inner leaves thus confirming previous 

 analyses, and showing also that the composition of cabbages varies 

 considerably. 



Dr. Voelcker found much less water in the cabbage than Dr. 

 Anderson. 



The specimen analyzed by Dr. V., was grown on the farm of 

 the Royal Ag. College of England, and I infer from some incidental 

 remarks, that the crop was grown on rather poor land. And it is 

 probably true that a large crop of cabbage grown on rich land, con- 

 tains a higher percentage of water than cabbage grown on poorer 



