CABBAGES. 61 



crop comes in, it is important that the heads should be fully 

 grown and solid. Cabbages should always, if possible, be 

 cut very early in the morning, before the sun can wilt 

 the leaves, as they then come to market looking fresh 

 and plump. Unlike late cabbages, the early kinds should 

 be cut with several leaves about the head, which gives 

 them a much larger and better appearance. When near a 

 market the heads are loaded in bulk, snugly and compact- 

 ly, into wagons, and either sold from the wagon to retailers 

 or left with a commission dealer for the same purpose. 

 They can be shipped in crates or barrels, well ventilated, 

 but must not be long packed, as they are very liable to 

 heat. 



Seed* Growing the seed of early cabbages is attended 

 with serious difficulties, the chief of which is to produce 

 the heads at a season entirely adverse to their nature. 



I sow three separate times, and as near as may be the 

 first, tenth, and twentieth of June, in the same manner as 

 directed for growing late cabbage plants, except owing to 

 the season I choose a moist piece of ground, and in the 

 absence of rain resort to watering every evening until 

 the plants are up, and occasionally thereafter. When the 

 plants are large enough to handle, they may be set out, 

 but at this, season of the year transplanting is not always 

 practicable, hence my reason for making three different 

 sowings, in hopes that we may be favored with rain at 

 such time as one lot or the other will be in condition to 

 set out. A piece of land on which has been grown peas, 

 spinach, or other early-maturing crop is used, being 

 plowed, harrowed, and marked out all ready for such time 

 as the rain may come. The land is well manured, broad- 

 cast, for the first crop in anticipation of the second, hence 

 no further manuring is necessary, and in fact I have found 

 that early cabbages grown late, in over-rich ground, are 

 apt to be tender, and do not preserve so well over winter 

 as when less stimulated. Whenever the weather will per- 



