56 



properly prepared, will produce a crop of fifty or even a hundred per 

 cent. The peDetrating, ramifying, fibrous root of this vegetable 

 cleaves and subdivides the stiff soil, so as to draw down a free circu- 

 lation of the air, and to dry, pulverize and mellow the loamy earth. 

 Its large leaves absorb a great quantity of nourishment, in the form 

 of atmospheric gases, and by their fall communicate the elements 

 collected to the soil. A crop of beans is the most proper means for 

 improving wet and heavy land; while eliminating nearly as much 

 nutritious matter for the use of animals as a crop of wheat, it pro- 

 duces a far less exhausting effect upon the soil, and upon heavy land 

 it excels every other crop in making a remunerating return for 

 manure. They are better suited for feeding horses and are more 

 nutritious than oats. When thus used, they ought to be split or 

 bruised in a mill and given in a mixture with cut hay or straw. 

 They are also much employed in England for the fattening of hogs, 

 but they have a tendency to render pork firm, and not sufficiently 

 delicate, and at the last stage of fattening they are superseded by 

 barley meal. Bean meal is well adapted to fatten oxen; and mixed 

 with the drink of cows it very materially increases the yield of milk. 

 Wheat flour is often adulterated by bean meal. 



Cabbage (Brassica oleracea) has been generally and very early 

 cultivated by the ancient Greeks and Komans. The Greeks held it 

 in great esteem, and are said to have expatriated their physicians; 

 and simply by the use of cabbage have preserved their health for 

 six hundred years. Both Greek and Komans ate the raw leaf as a 

 preventive of intoxication, and as alleviating its effects. Pliny, 

 speaking of the spring shoots, says: "I dwell long on this veg- 

 etable, because it is in so great repute in the kitchen and among 

 our riotous gluttons.'' 



The most suitable soil for cabbage is a sound mellow loam, of the 

 peculiar quality and texture designated as fat or unctuous, contain- 

 ing sand in very large proportion in minute division, combined with 

 a considerable quantity of aluminous earth. When cabbage is fed 

 to milch cows, all the unsound leaves should be carefully stripped 

 off. This vegetable more than any other plant contains nitro- 

 genous materials, suitable for the nourishment of man, and is on 

 this account a good substitute for meat. 



The Turnip (Brassica rapa) is a biennial and has two seasons of 

 growth, one in which it develops its leaves directly from the root 



