78 



KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



such things to stand long, and the plants are in plenty as to number. 

 The next size is the early York, which may have sixteen inches every 

 way. The sugar-loaf may have twenty inches. The Batter sea and 

 Savoy two feet and a half. The large sorts, as the drum-head and 

 others, three feet at least, — Now, with regard to tillage, keep the 

 ground clear of weeds. But, whether there be weeds or not, hoe 

 between the plants in ten days after they are planted. You cannot 

 dig between the plants which stand at the smallest distances ; but 

 you may, and ought, to dig once, if not twice, during their growth, 

 between all the rest. To prevent a sudden check by breaking all 

 the roots at once, in hot weather, dig every other interval, leave 

 the rest, and dig them a week later. All the larger sorts of cab- 

 bages should, about the time that their heads are beginning to 

 form, be earthed up ; that is, have the earth from the surface 

 drawn up against the stem ; and the taller the plants are, the 

 more necessary this is, and the higher should the earth be drawn. 

 After the earth has been thus drawn up from the surface, dig, or 

 hoe deep, the rest of the ground. — Thus the crop will be brought to 

 perfection. — As to sorts, the earliest is the early dwarf ; the next 

 is the early sea-green ; then comes the early York. Perhaps any 

 one of them may do ; but the first will head ten days sooner than 

 the last. The greatest thing belonging to cabbages is to have 

 heads, loaved and white, to cut early in the spring ; and these you 

 cannot have unless you sow the seed in the last week of July or 

 first week of August ; and unless that seed be of the early sort and 

 true. The manner of sowing seed and of pricking out has already 

 been described. The plants should be put out into rows of two 

 feet apart, and about fifteen inches apart in the row ; and this work 

 should be done about the latter end of October. If, however, the 

 season have brought the plants very forward, they may go out a 

 little before ; but, if the weather prove very mild, it is a very good 

 way to dig them up and plant them again immediately, each in its 

 own place, about the middle of November ; for, if they get too 

 forward, they will be either greatly injured by a sharp winter, or 

 will, by a mild winter, be made to run up to seed in the spring, 

 instead of having heads ; but, if the seed have been well saved, 

 there is very little danger of their running ; perhaps not a hundred 

 on an acre. It is the method of saving the seed that is the all-in- 

 all in this case. There are some who save the seed of cabbages 

 that have run. This is a marvelously easy and lazy way, and will 



