The Canadian Horticulturist. 



213 



MANURING CABBAGE IN THE HILL. 



O grow a good crop of cabbages, the soil must be well provided 

 with plant food. Not only the minerals, but nitrogen also must 

 be in full supply. Plowing in clover stubble, and still better a 

 good stand of clover, makes a most excellent preparation for cab- 

 bages, but if they are to be set very early, the green manure 

 should be plowed under early enough the preceding season to give a chance for 

 the decay of the material plowed in. For late cabbages, the plowing can be 

 done in spring. In either use, however, some additions to the soil fertility must 

 be made. 



If the clover plants furnish the nitrogen and carbon that may be needed for 

 the thrifty growth and full development of the cabbages, we will make sure that 

 the potash and phosphoric acid is not wanting by applications of wood ashes and 

 bone flour. Such applications may also assist in the change whereby the un- 

 available nitrogen is changed into the available nitrate form. 



A good way of applying these materials is suggested by James J. H, Gregory 

 in American Cultivator. It has given him great satisfaction. " I first spread a 

 two-inch layer of fine soil," he says, "on the shed floor, which I moistened well 

 with the sprinkler, and then had two inches of flour of bone, also well sprinkled, 

 and then finally from one to two inches of unleached wood ashes, which were 

 also well moistened. In this order I formed a heap about three feet high. In 

 about a fortnight this heap had heated sufficiently to dry the moisture, when it 

 was cut down with a hoe, and all the dry lumps knocked up fine. I used a 

 closed handful of the mixture in each cabbage hill before planting. 



In all my experience in growing cabbage, for upwards of thirty years, I never 

 saw more thrifty plants than grew over that manure. The leaves were broad and 

 open, with that healthy green color which delights the farmer's eye, and without 

 that naked stem connection of the leaves with the stem which characterizes 

 feeble plants. The caustic potash of the ashes had so acted on the fine bone as 

 to make it very more valuable as a fertilizer. Though it was not made soluble, 

 yet it readily became so when in contact with the soil." — Pop. Gar. 



Joseph Harris says there is nothing equal to nitrate of soda for producing a 

 large crop of onions. He advises 250 pounds per acre two or three weeks apart, 

 pulverizing the surface soil continuously, which is about as important as the 

 fertilizer. Experiments at some of the agricultural stations indicate that it is 

 best to sow all the nitrate of soda early, at once, broadcast. One great advant- 

 age, which it possesses, is in its early and prompt action. 



