EARLY CABBAGE 



R. H. Garrahan, Kingston, Pennsylvania 



In order to produce a good crop of early cabbage, there are a few 

 conditions with which the grower must comply: 



1st. We must use good seed. And here the grower does not have 

 to take any chances. He has no one to blame but himself if he uses 

 poor seed. 



2d. We must have a supply of well-grown plants. Here again the 

 grower takes absolutely no chances. It is his own fault if he does not 

 raise good plants. 



3d. We must have the soil in the best possible condition in regard to 

 fertility and mechanical condition. As a rule it is up to the grower 

 to have his land in suitable condition. 



4th. JVe should have freedom from disease and insect pests. Here 

 we have to take our chances. We haven't yet been furnished with 

 any sure panacea for all the ills that plant life is heir to. 



5th. We must receive a good price for the finished product. The 

 fixing of prices is usually beyond the grower and here he surely does 

 take a long chance. 



I said that we had absolutely no excuse for using poor seed. You 

 say there is lots of poor seed on the market and that the seedman is 

 liable to sell you some worthless stuff. I will agree with you, but 

 don't buy such trash. 



I was talking with a gentleman during the National Convention at 

 Boston last fall. He said he had a contract to furnish a quantity of 

 cabbage seed for a large dealer. I asked him if the dealer ever visited 

 his farm and inspected the cabbages he had saved for seed purposes. 

 He said he had never seen the dealer. His plan, he said, was to produce 

 as much seed as possible per acre, and as cheaply as possible. 



We don't want such seed as that and there is no occasion for using 

 it. In order to be dead sure of the strain of seed you are using, the 

 best plan is to grow your own. 



1^ Many of our agricultural writers have given us to understand that 

 seed raising should be done by experts — that the ordinary run of 

 market gardeners do not know enough to raise their own seed. We 

 have had this drilled into us so often that many of us have come to 

 accept it as the truth. With the exception of the Livingston's, I can- 

 not recall any really first class varieties which have been developed 



