EARLY CABBAGE 



during the winter apply thirty or forty tons of manure per acre. It is 

 a good plan to harrow the ground with a "cut away" disk early in the 

 spring. This allows the sun and air to dry the land, and we are thus 

 enabled to plow much earlier than we otherwise could. Most of us 

 vegetable growers know the ^ alue of getting our crops in early, and 

 very often we get in too much of a hurry, and as a consequence, set out 

 plants without first getting the soil in the j^roper condition. This is 

 one of the worst mistakes we can make. If the land is not properly 

 fitted before planting, it never can be after the field is planted. Plow 

 the ground just as soon as it is dry enough, then cut-a-way, harrow 

 and roll, if necessary, until the land is in the best possible condition. 



We then apply the following fertilizer, per acre, six hundred 

 pounds tankage, six hundred pounds acid phosphate, four hundred 

 pounds potash; this is applied broadcast and worked into the soil with 

 an Acme harrow. The ground is then smoothed and marked out two 

 and one-half by one and one-half feet. The plants are dumped from 

 the flats and separated very carefully, so as to retain as many of the 

 fibrous roots as possible. They are puddled in thin mud, stood 

 upright in boxes and hauled to the field. Children are used to drop 

 the plants, and men and women armed with dibbers fasten them, care 

 being taken to get the soil tight around the roots. The plants are set 

 as deep as possible without covering the hearts; which is a great pro- 

 tection if the weather should turn cold before the plants have been 

 established. The cabbages are cultivated and hoed as soon as they 

 have struck root. A small handful of nitrate of soda is then applied 

 around the plant, usually from two hundred to five hundred pounds 

 per acre. All that is necessary from now on is to keep the cultivators 

 going and hoe occasionally to keep the soil loose around the plants. 



Some growers, where land is very valuable, will intercrop their 

 cabbage. The usual combination is to set lettuce between the plants 

 and sow one or two rows of radishes between the rows of cabbage. 

 To my mind, this is a very questionable practice, it sounds fine to 

 say you are producing four or five fine crops per year on the same 

 land, but we prefer one or two good crops to half a dozen poor ones. 

 The constant tramping over the ground in order to pull the radishes 

 or cut the lettuce is very detrimental to the cabbage, and does not 

 allow the necessary cultivation for the best development of the plant. 



The market gardener may not have a monopoly on all the bugs, 

 blights and other diseases which attack plant life, but he has enough 

 ■at least to make the job interesting. 



