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AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST'.HEALTHY, THE MOST USEFUL , AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN. - Washington. 
PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY ALLEN & CO., 189 WATER ST. 
V 0 L . XI . ] NEW-YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1853. [NUMBER 13. 
m°FOR PROSPECTUS, TERMS, $c., 
SEE LAST PAGE. 
THE CABBAGE. 
No. I. 
Of all subjects treated of in books, nothing 
is further removed from the domain of esthetics 
and poetry than the cabbage. The literary 
reader will search his favorite authors in vain, 
for any considerable scrap or essay upon this 
esculent. It is not found in the favorite pasture- 
grounds of the poets, and genius has never 
sought to invest it with a beauty and glory not 
its own. There is something noble in a field of 
wheat, whether tossing its green plumes in the 
breezes of early summer, or waving its heavy- 
laden heads in the golden sunshine of harvest. 
The hay fields are beautiful in the greenness of 
spring, and all the way up to their maturity, 
and the hay-making season is always associated 
with fragrant odors and the blithe sounds of 
farm-life in the summer. The maize is a noble 
plant, and we could cultivate it for its dark green, 
tropical leaves, its lofty spikes, and green tas¬ 
sels, if it bore no grain. But the cabbage, alas! 
what object in field or garden is so little attract¬ 
ive? The beet is as lowly, but the beet has the 
rich, generous blood of a sensitive thing. Cut 
it, and see how beautiful arc the concentric 
rings of scarlet and crimson. The carrot is 
more humble, but the bright orange of its root 
redeems it from vulgarity. The turnip, first 
cousin of the cabbage, is about as ugly, but 
then it has sense enough to know it, and bur¬ 
rows as much in the dirt as possible to keep out 
of sight. But the cabbage, unconscious of its 
deformity, lifts its big drum head in the air, 
perched upon a rough, ungainly stump, as if “ it 
were a thing of beauty, and a joy forever.” 
Coleridge once ventured to write lines to an 
ass, but it was a young one with the ears not 
yet fully developed. That animal in its matu¬ 
rity would probably have been a damper even to 
the musical fire of his genius. From the fact 
that cabbage is not yet sung, it may be termed 
the ass among vegetables. Its leaves are some¬ 
what large and broad, and suggestive of ears. 
In quality it is hardly more attractive than in 
appearance. It is not an aristocratic vegetable, 
and is seldom found in the best society. Onions 
are eschewed because they taint the breath; cab¬ 
bage because it disorders weak stomachs. Dys¬ 
peptics have a horror of it, and literary gentle¬ 
men in general, whose digestive organs are in the 
head rather than within the viscera. But the cab¬ 
bage, plebeian though it be among vegetables, is 
in excellent repute with the laboring classes, and 
is said to be one of the best sustainers of muscle 
furnished by the garden. For men and women 
in sound health, it is a wholesome article of diet, 
and should have a place in every rural garden. 
The History of this unattractive plant is in 
keeping with its appearance and quality. It is 
mostly unwritten, and like unappreciated merit 
in the higher walks of life, waits a biographer 
to do it justice. The cabbage has stolen very 
quietly into favor, and made itself essential to 
society, without raising much of a dust. It is 
probably more associated in the minds of our 
readers with the Dutch than with any other na¬ 
tion. Whether they were the first people to 
appreciate its merits, history is not very clear. 
They have given their name to several varieties, 
and we have the early dwarf Dutch, flat Dutch, 
and red Dutch, as a consequence of the sojourn 
of the cabbage among that people. England 
also has its admirers of this plant, as early York, 
late York, large York, early Wellington, Batter¬ 
sea, and other names of favorite kinds attest. 
Ireland has not furnished as many names among 
cabbages, but probably no class of our foreign 
population are more liberal consumers of this 
product of the garden. 
The consumption of cabbage in all our cities 
and large towns is enormous. The suburban 
market gardeners find this article in demand for 
twelve months in the year, and with a little 
skill in wintering the heads, and in preparing 
cold frame plants for early culture, the demand 
is readily met. They find too, that few crops 
pay better than this. Two crops may be grown 
in a season from the same soil, or they may be 
grown as an early or late crop in connection with 
other vegetables. The cabbage is among the 
hardiest products of the garden, growing nine 
months in the year, and requiring little skill to 
raise it in perfection. In the vicinity of New- 
York and Philadelphia it is a prime article of 
cultivation among gardeners, and fields of many 
acres maybe seen covered with this crop. Some 
growers send from one to two hundred thou¬ 
sand to market in a single season. No sight is 
more common at the ferries, or in the vicinity 
of our markets, than the cabbage wagons filled 
to the top of their racks. Large stories are told 
of the profitableness of this crop, but in the 
absence of reliable statistics, we will not repeat 
them. In discussing this vegetable, we will 
begin with 
The Wintering of Cabbages, a topic that 
comes last in logical order, but is most op¬ 
portune for our readers, as the season is already 
at hand when this crop should be removed to 
its winter quarters. We will suppose that your 
crop has been a successful one; the summer and 
fall varieties are already marketed, and you have 
on hand a lot that you ^ish to preserve for 
winter and spring use. How can you keep 
them in good condition ? 
Several methods are used. The Indians are 
said to have preserved them by burying the 
heads, and leaving the roots above ground. We 
have tried this mode, putting the heads bottom 
upwards upon a board, and drawing the earth 
up about the stumps six or eight inches deep. 
They did not keep remarkable well. 
A plan more successful with us has been, to 
dig a trench in a dry place, six to ten inches 
deep, and put into this two round pieces of wood, 
running through the entire length, and about 
three inches apart. Upon these the cabbages 
are inverted, surrounded with straw, and the 
whole covered up with earth deep enough to 
protect them from frost. This earth is well 
packed down by spatting with the back of a 
shovel, and sheds off most of the falling rain, 
which runs into the deep trenches upon the 
sides, made by removing the soil for banking 
up. The ends of the trench are left open so as 
to allow a circulation of air. The only object¬ 
ion we have found to this plan is, that mice 
have sometimes entered and destroyed numbers 
of the cabbage. 
Many of our farmers have out-of-door cellars, 
constructed solely for wintering vegetables, 
Cabbages are set out within these in their na¬ 
tural position, and do very well until the severe 
weather requires the entrance to be stopped, 
when they suffer for want of air. We never 
saw a cabbage come out in good condition in 
the spring, kept in this way. 
We keep but a few for family use during win¬ 
ter, and have succeeded admirably in the follow¬ 
ing method. We can recommend it to all house¬ 
keepers and gardeners, who only wish to secure 
enough for home consumption. We select the 
north side of a board fence, wall, or building, 
and dig a trench some six or eight inches deep ; 
put in a row of cabbages, and earth them up 
nearly to the heads; then prepare another 
trench so near, that the heads will but just 
touch each other; put in another row, and so 
on, until the whole is finished. We make a 
covering of rough boards over them when the 
ground begins to freeze, and cover it with sea¬ 
weed or other litter. 
For those who have large quantities to pre¬ 
serve, we recommend a practice which has long- 
been successfully followed by many persons in 
the vicinity of New-York, and which is sub¬ 
stantially the same as our own, except that the 
plow is used instead of the spade. 
A suitable spot is selected in a garden or 
field, some five or six feet wide, and of any de¬ 
sirable length from north to south, and free 
from standing water. A furrow is opened upon 
one side, and in this a row of cabbages placed 
side by side, with the heads inclined outward 
at an angle of about forty-five degrees. An- 
