PLANTS OF THE BRASSICA GENUS. I55 



under the head of feeding, it may be used as green 

 food for several weeks after tlie ground has frozen. 



But even though the crop lias been grown chiefly 

 as human food, when the areas thus planted are 

 large, the residue of the crop after the heads have 

 been taken, is possessed of a value for feeding uses 

 that will far more than repay the labor of feeding 

 it to live stock. This residue, though it varies 

 greatly in relative value, is frequently worth fully 

 fifty per cent of the whole value of the crop, when 

 used as food for live stock. In growing cabbage, 

 therefore, the recommendation to "gather up the 

 fragments that nothing be lost" is peculiarly fitting. 



Because of the considerable labor involved in 

 growing cabbage the crop is adapted to intensive 

 rather than to extensive conditions. The farmer 

 having a small farm located near a town or city, and 

 having on that farm few animals, can usually grow 

 this crop to better advantage than the man whose 

 conditions are the opposite. 



Cabbage furnish excellent food for horses, 

 cattle, sheep and swine. It has a nutritive ratio of 

 I :5.2 and, therefore, is in itself almost a perfectly 

 balanced food for milch cows. It is not only relished 

 highly by the various classes of animals mentioned, 

 but when fed to those giving milk, as to cows, ewes 

 and brood sows, it has much power to produce an 

 abundant flow of milk. The heads when chopped 

 fine furnish a peculiarly grateful and appetizing food 

 for young lambs. The yields obtained per acre are 

 in some instances simply enormous. Crops of forty 

 to fifty tons have been grown, but these figures are 

 much above the average. 



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