36 
AMERICAN KITCHEN GARDENER. 
from the garden, they should be set out again in a trench dug in the bottom 
of a cellar. If the cellar is pretty cool, it will be better.” 
The London Monthly Magazine gives the following method, by which 
cabbages may be preserved on board ships, &c. :—“The cabbage is cut so as 
to leave about two inches or more of the stem attached to it; after which 
the pith is scooped out to about the depth of an inch, care being taken not 
to wound or bruise the rind by this operation. The cabbages then are sus¬ 
pended by means of a cord, tied round that portion of the stem next the 
cabbage, and fastened at regular intervals to a rope across the deck. That 
portion of the stem from which the pith is taken, being uppermost, is regu¬ 
larly filled with water.” 
To save cabbage seed .—“ The raising of the seed of the different sorts of 
cabbage, Neill observes, affords employment to many persons in various 
parts of England. It is well known that no plants are more liable to be 
spoiled by cross breeds, than the cabbage tribe, unless the plants of any par¬ 
ticular variety, when in flower, be kept at a very considerable distance from 
any other; also in flower, bees are extremely apt to carry the pollen of the 
one to the other, and produce confusion in the progeny. Market gardeners, 
and many private individuals, raise seed for their own use. Some of the 
handsomest cabbages of the different sorts are dug up in autumn 1 , and sunk 
in the ground to the head; early next summer a flower-stem appears, 
which is followed by abundance of seed. A few of the soundest and 
healthiest cabbage-stalks, furnished with sprouts, answer the same end. 
When the seed has been well ripened and dried, it will keep for six or eight 
years. It is mentioned by Bastien, that the seed-growers of Aubervilliers 
have learned by experience, that seed gathered from the middle flower-stem 
produces plants which will be fit for use a fortnight earlier than those from 
the seed of the lateral flow’er-stem; this may deserve the attention of the 
watchful gardener, and assist him in regulating his successive crops of the 
same kind of cabbage.”— Loudon. 
Field culture .—The variety cultivated in the fields for cattle is almost ex¬ 
clusively the large Scotch, or field cabbage. The land is prepared the same 
way as for other hoed crops. “ The preparation given to the plants,” says 
Loudon, “ consists in pinching off the extremity of their tap-root, and any 
tubercles which appear on the root or stem, and in immersing the root 
and stem in a puddle or mixture of earth and water, to protect the 
fibers and pores of the roots and stem from drought. The plants may 
then be inserted by the dibbler, taking care not to plant too deep, and 
to press the earth firmly to the lower extremity of the root. If this 
last point is not attended to, the plants will either die, or, if kept alive 
by the moisture of the soil, or rain, their progress will be very slow. When 
the distance between the ridglets [or rows] is twenty-seven inches, the 
plants are set about two feet asunder in the rows, and the quantity required 
