606 
proper condition to be transplanted, should be 
carefully selected, and set in a bed of rich soil, 
watered, and managed in exactly the same man- 
ner as those of the July or August sowing. The 
seedlings which remain in the seed-bed should 
be gently lifted, the ground stirred, cleaned, and 
watered, and the plants reset at regular distances 
of three or four inches asunder. If the plants be 
multitudinous, a number of the best may, with 
great advantage, be placed in a succession bed in 
rows and at distances of six inches asunder ; and 
| these, not only will suffer an useful check to their 
growth, but will acquire ramose and stocky roots. 
“Tf,” says Mr. Towers, “a bed be formed and 
planted for cabbaging in June, and thence every 
two months, and especially if—as I must presume 
—a previous transplantation had already been 
made during May, it is obvious that a succession 
of crops will be secured during every favourable 
season till the end of October; and I may add, 
from positive experience, that if the weather be 
then fine, and the succeeding winter prove open 
_ and mild, any remaining stock in the seed-bed, 
however long-shanked and ungainly they may 
be, if set deep in the soil of a well-prepared bed, 
may make good progress till the end of Novem- 
ber, survive the winter, and produce excellently- 
hearted and sweet-tasted cabbages in April. 
Small they will be, and some perhaps will fly to 
seed; but those which do succeed will amply re- 
ward the attentive care of the grower. My ex- 
perience applies to the latitude of London, though 
in a country far westward, and much later in its 
productions; but I presume that in the north 
also, these hints may be rendered to a certain 
extent available.” 
The field cultivation of cabbages is, as to prin- 
ciple, seasons, and general rules of practice, ex- 
actly the same as the garden cultivation ; and it 
differs principally in less attention being given 
to each individual plant, in the plough and the 
horse-hoe being substituted for mere hand im- 
plements, and in little or no care being used to 
obtain a succession of supplies by means of nicety 
inmanagement. The preparatory tillage is nearly 
the same as that for turnips, but always requires 
deeper ploughings, and is often effected by one 
plough following another in the furrow ; and 
land which is clayey and wet, is very generally 
laid in ridges of, in most instances, four furrows 
each. When the land is so light and dry as to 
be advantageously laid flat, the manure is usually 
incorporated with it previous to the last plough- 
ing; but when it is so adhesive and moist as 
to require to be laid in ridges, the manure, im- 
mediately before planting, is spread in the fur- 
rows between the bouts, and the ridges are turned 
over upon it by being split asunder with the 
plough. The proper distance between the drills, 
is 24 feet for the smaller kinds of field cabbage, 
| and 3 or 34 feet for the larger kinds; and the 
proper distance in the row between plant and 
plant, is the same as the distance between the 
Scotland—and, by parity of principle, for the 
CABBAGE. 
drills ; but, in order to allow for failures and ob- 
tain a full crop, the distance in the row at plant- 
ing ought to be only one-half of the intended 
final distance,—leaving the supernumerary plants 
to be torn up when the desired number are fairly 
rooted. A frequent method of planting is to lay 
the land in raised drills, and’ to deposit the plants 
by dibbling; but this method permits careless or 
bungling workmen to set many of the plants with 
upturned radical stem or without proper pressure 
of the soil around the radical fibres; and it, in | 
consequence, is very generally followed by the | 
failure of a large proportion of the crop. A much | 
better method is to imitate the usual principle 
of transplanting large quantities of seedling- 
trees. The plough opens, in the well-tilled land, 
a deep and narrow furrow ; a woman or a child 
passes along with a basketful of seedlings, places 
them at the proper distances against the abrupt | 
side of the furrow, and gives to each a gentle | 
pressure to make it retain its proper position ; 
the plough covers all the roots with the soil 
turned over on its return; a man passes along, 
and obliquely presses his foot against the furrow | 
slice at the place of each plant; and the plough | 
either omits the requisite intervening space, or | 
disposes it in shallower and broader furrows, and 
then cuts the deep and narrow furrow for the 
next row of plants. 
The after-culture consists in horse-hoeing, hand- 
hoeing, and weeding, and is essentially the same in | 
principle, appliances, and design, as that of other 
drilled green crops. A frequent method of gather- | 
ing the crop of the bolling field kinds, is to chop 
off their heads with a spade, leaving to each an | 
inch or two inches of its stem ; but this requires | 
to be modified with some kinds, and cautiously 
conducted with all. 
bages, and other open-headed kinds, may be ga- 
thered by stripping off tier after tier of leaves 
from the time of the plants being 12 or 20 inches | 
high, till the time of their beginning to run up | 
to seed, and may be allowed to remain on the | 
ground throughout the winter ; but the bolling- | 
headed or true cabbage kinds must be very 
charily bereft of any leaves till the whole are cut 
away in one head, and ought to be entirely re- 
moved from the ground before the commence- 
ment of winter ; for if single leaves are stripped 
off, the process of bolling may be enfeebled or 
prevented,—and if any portion of the crop re- | 
main on the ground during winter, its outer 
leaves are liable to become so much injured as 
to impart a disagreeable flavour to dairy produce. 
The field cultivation of cabbages has often been 
lauded as at once one of the most eligible, one of 
the most remunerating, and one of the most 
shamefully neglected departments of husbandry ; 
and yet it has probably been quite as often de- 
nounced as of doubtful expediency, of precarious 
character, or even of wasteful and destructive 
tendency. A judicious estimate of its fitness for 
The coleworts, cow-cab- | 
