597 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON THE COMPOSITION OF TWO VARIETIES OF KOHL¬ 
RABI, AND OF CATTLE-CABBAGE. 
Bv Dr. Augustus Voelcker. 
* 
There are two crops which deserve to be more exten¬ 
sively cultivated than they are at present—the one is Kohl¬ 
rabi, the other Cattle-cabbage. Both crops have this in 
common, that they are not injured by frost, provided that 
the young plants are not planted out too early in the spring, 
in which case they get over-ripe before the winters sets in, 
and in a rainy and warm autumn or mild winter are certain 
to be spoiled. If Kohl-rabi or cabbages, therefore, are in¬ 
tended as winter food for cows or sheep, they should not 
be planted out too soon, nor should the whole crop be put 
out at one time. When the seed has been sown and the 
young plants set out at proper intervals of time, a regular 
succession of cabbages or Kohl-rabi may be kept up as easily 
in the field as it is in a vegetable garden, and a supply 
of very nutritious and wholesome food be secured at periods 
of the year when other food is scarce. 
Kohl-rabi especially stands the frost remarkably w r ell. In 
Germany, where a small variety is grown in gardens for the 
table, it is not considered good until it has stood at least a 
week's hard frost. As food for lambs it far surpasses white 
turnips, and is equal to any kind of green food with which 
I am acquainted. With proper management it may be 
grown so as to come in at the lambing season ; and even 
should the bulbs sprout abundantly and become themselves 
deteriorated or unfit for food, still I believe that sheep- 
breeders will not regret having reserved a Kohl-rabi field 
for the lambing season, instead of one of white turnips, 
because the tops and sprouts of Kohl-rabi, unlike those of 
the white turnip, are very nutritious. The Kohl-rabi is a 
plant which belongs, as most readers of this journal are 
aware, to the cabbage tribe. Its leaves consequently re¬ 
semble in taste, composition, and nutritive properties, those 
of the cabbage much more than those of the turnip, which 
latter are more watery and far less nutritious. 
I much regret that I had no opportunity last season of 
obtaining the leaves of Kohl-rabi plants for analysis; but as 
