LATE CABBAGE 



105 



ture which we have kept stored up by continuous dragging. 

 Usually the sun or the cabbage crop gets the moisture at this 

 time of year. 



Never set cabbage when the ground is wet. If you do you 

 will pack the ground around the plants, so it can never be 

 loosened up, thus causing a great loss of moisture. Of all 

 setting tools, we prefer Masters' Plant Setter, which enables 

 one to set plants in rows both ways. The work can be done 

 when the ground is very dry, as the setter places the roots 

 down in the moist dirt with a little water for each plant. The 

 ground does not have to be packed around the young plant, 

 thus forming a hard ball. The water seals the roots to the 

 ground and so little water is necessary that a dry mulch is 

 maintained on the surface around the young plant. This 

 mulch is of great importance. Four quarts of water is suf- 

 ficient to set one hundred plants or forty quarts for one thou- 

 sand. With two men to set and one to dig plants, we can set 

 about ten thousand in a day of nine hours. This is equivalent 

 to over two acres set three feet each way. The machine set- 

 ter is a great labor saver over the old-fashioned hand way,, 

 but in nine cases out of ten the plants are set very unevenly 

 and rowed only one way. It takes quite experienced help and 

 a lot of water, and not every small farmer or gardener can. 

 afford to own one, nor is he able to hire one when he wants 

 it. We always row our cabbage both ways, about three feet 

 by twenty to thirty inches, as we think the ground will stand. 

 We use a small peg-toothed garden cultivator when going the 

 narrow way. 



Cultivation. 



Perhaps we do not cultivate more than three or four times 

 this way, as the plants will soon shade the ground. Usually 

 the plants are cultivated quite late in the season the other 

 way of the rows. If the ground has been dragged about once 

 a week before setting and the cabbage is rowed both ways, 

 it will seldom be necessary to do any hand work on the crop. 

 When my brother and I were small, our father used to let 

 us raise a small patch of turnips for market. We used to 

 govern the size of the turnips by the number of cultivations 

 we gave them. That is, if the turnips were going to be toQ 



