CABBAGE. 45 



club-root. This may, or may not, be the case, but 

 observation teaches us that club-root will appear in 

 parts of fields where there has riot been cabbage in 

 twenty years. We saw a case of this kind last sea- 

 son, where a farmer had a field of several acres, one 

 side of which was lower than the main part of the 

 field; on this side the whole crop club-rooted, not a 

 head escaped. He said there had not been a crop of 

 cabbage grown on any part of that field in more than 

 twenty years. 



Yet many market gardeners, near New York, 

 have cabbage on the same field fully half of the time, 

 and some of the more experienced say that if lime 

 is used freely it could be grown every year on the 

 same ground, while others say they must give up 

 growing cabbage, as their land will no longer 

 produce it. 



We are of the opinion that one crop, when well 

 grown, not only perfects itself, but at the same time 

 prepares the soil for some other crop. In other 

 words, where early potatoes are followed by a crop 

 of late cabbage, the same rotation can be kept up for 

 a succession of years with impunity, bearing in mind 

 the importance of soil fertility. The cabbage is a 

 gross feeder, and the potato equally so, it therefore 

 follows that the two crops must annually take from 

 the soil a vast amount of plant food. A good crop 

 of each takes from the land fully thirty tons of stable 

 manure. No two species of plants have identically 

 the same wants, or possess the same powers of sup- 

 plying them from the soil. From the one crop there 

 is always something left for the other. Rotation of 

 crops, with a liberal amount of well-assorted plant 

 food, is the secret of agricultural success. 



