78 
Hints on Vegetable and Fruit Farming. 
hands. These may take the place of mangolds or turnips in the 
routine of farm crops, and, as has been suggested, thej form mar- 
vellously good food for ewes and lambs if they cannot be sold for 
vegetables. There really is no more expense in the cultivation 
of cabbages fit for human food than in that of cabbages for cattle, 
and the profit from them in some seasons is highly satisfactory. 
Supposing the plants were put out at the end of September upon 
land well manured, they might be cut for market upon the first 
approach of spring, or even in the winter, if it were mild, they 
might be sold as greens, known as Coleworts, or "Collards;" 
or in May and June as perfect full-hearted cabbages. Some- 
times coleworts make very high prices when green stuff is scarce, 
as much as from ^s. to 12s. per dozen bunches, each bunch being 
about a handful. As from 140 to 300 dozen bunches are grown 
per acre, the proceeds sometimes are very large. The Blue 
Colewort, Cock's Hardy Green, and the Rosette are sorts adapted 
for this purpose, but these do not make good hearts ; and the best 
sorts for cabbages proper, with good hearts, intended for spring 
cutting, are the East Ham, Enfield Market, Sugarloaf, Battersea, 
and Wheeler's Nonpareil, among others. 
Cabbage-plants are grown in seed-beds, usually in strips about 
5 feet wide. About 10 lbs. of seed are sown per acre on these 
beds towards the end of July, for winter planting, and the beds 
are carefully hoed over when the young plants are up, which 
are slightly thinned, and all the deformed plants are pulled out. 
For cabbages the plants are put out 22 inches by 20 inches. For 
coleworts they are set 12 inches, or 14 inches each way. One 
acre of seed-bed will plant about 15 acres of coleworts or about 
20 acres of cabbages. Great care must be taken in the selection 
of seed of full germinating power and true to sort, and much 
attention must be paid to sow the seed deeply enough, yet not too 
deeply, in the seed-beds. In ordinary seasons cabbages will be 
cleared off by the end of June, and might be followed by wheat ; 
or, if another crop of vegetables were desired, the ground might 
be prepared for autumn-sown onions ; or a crop of potatoes might 
be obtained by putting them in as fast as the cabbages were 
cleared off. In early seasons sometimes a capital crop is grown 
in this way,* and in this case the land would then come in for 
winter tares, or be ploughed up l^or oats or barley. If dealers 
do not take the cabbages, they could be carted to the nearest 
town upon waggons with springs, made expressly for the purpose, 
which take huge loads ; or to the railway station, where the 
cabbage can be moved into trucks, or the waggon itself taken 
* There are quick growing kinds of potatoes, suited for this purpose. Among 
these is the Red Bog, which being planted at the end of April is fit to dig in 
August. 
