s 
11 
shipped for his own use 400,000 plants from 
Evansville and 1,100,000 from Nashville. 
Six thousand plants are required for an 
acre. Many of these are destroyed by the cab¬ 
bage fly or flea, the maggot, the worm, and 
careless cultivation. Keplanting is a small 
factor in the product; therefore, if the 
farmer obtains 4,000 good average heads to 
the acre he has a big crop, and 3,000 heads 
would be an excellent average. Next Sat¬ 
urday the harvest will begin, and one hun¬ 
dred experienced laborers will march 
through the early cabbage crop and select 
the largest and choicest heads for shipment 
to the South. 
“Don’t they raise any cabbage there?’’ 
asked the reporter. 
“Plenty of it,” was the reply. “I have 
been asked the same question a thousand 
times during the past eleven years. I will 
explain it to you as 1 have to others. Down 
South, in the vicinity of New Orleans, they 
plant their cabbages along in September, 
and they always have new cabbage for 
Christmas. They depend upon it just the 
same as Southern Ohio folks expect new 
potatoes for their Fourth of July dinner. 
Their cabbage season runs out just about 
the time Memphis and Nashville cabbages 
are ready for the market. After it matures, 
you know, they have got to eat it or throw 
it away. They cannot bury it in the ground 
like we do here in the North, or store it 
away in cool cellars. It has to be eaten 
before it decays. They then depend upon 
the up river country until in turn they ex¬ 
haust the St. Louis market, which, in a 
couple of weeks or more, will be able to 
send no further supplies. Then they have 
to depend upon the Chicago cabbage dis¬ 
trict until they can grow their own cab¬ 
bage. When 1 say ‘they’ I mean the whole 
South, including bt. Louis. Each section 
in turn helps to supply the others, but 
Chicago ships more cabbage than all of the 
rest put together. Chicago ships from Aug. 
1 to Nov. 15, and some years a little later. 
This year, owing to a backward spring and 
vermin, we are nearly two weeks back¬ 
ward, and although the orders are pouring 
in, wfe cannot expect to commence to fill 
them until next week.”. . , . 
“You certainly sell some cabbage in Chi¬ 
cago ?’ 
“Not a single head. The best cabbage 
goes to a foreign market south, east and 
west. Such cabbage as is usually found on 
the Chicago market is made into “sauer¬ 
kraut.” Do not understand me to say the 
refuse is made into kraut, for that is not 
the fact. It’s the small heads which are 
perfectly sound, but loosely leaved, and 
having no market price alongside of prize 
heads, that are used for, and which make 
the choicest and best kraut, being freer 
from large stalks and therefore more val¬ 
uable for kraut than for the market. 
Of the 2,500 acres of cabbage in the dis¬ 
trict a single firm controls about 1,900 
acres. It will commence shipping next 
week, and to begin with, will ship one car¬ 
load per day, and as the heads develop, it 
will increase its shipments up to twenty or 
more cars per day, according to the rate of 
supply and demand. The first shipments 
of cabbage are placed in open or stock cars, 
and carefully packed to insure their arrival 
in good shape, no matter how far their 
destination may be. The stalks are cut off 
and outside leaves trimmed. The first lay¬ 
er on the bottom of the car is placed with 
the stalk butt resting on the floor of the 
car. The remaining layers to the capacity 
of the car are placed top downward. The 
heads are placed in layers three feet deep, 
when decks are placed in horizontally and 
perpendicularly, so as to equally divide the 
layers and to prevent pressure from above, 
and, laterally, to give perfect ventilation. 
Loaded in this way, no crates being used, 
hundred of carloads are shipped from Chi¬ 
cago annually, and the cabbage arrives at 
its destination in good order. Later in the 
season box-cars are used. While the chief 
markets are in the South, yet frequently, 
owing to the failure of the crops in the 
East, Chicago ships to New York, Boston, 
Portland and Providence. Last year one 
single firm shipped from its own fields 463 
carloads of cabbage, all of which arrived at 
its destination in good shape. 
The kraut season commences about Aug. 
15 and lasts to November. A visit to the 
kraut factory at the height of the season is 
well worth making. There is one pear Ash¬ 
land avenue, just back of the Stock Yards. 
It consists of three long frame buildings— 
