Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them Part 5

~Pomeranian Cabbage.~ Heads very long; quite large for a conical heading sort; very symmetrical and hard; color, yellowish-green. It handles well, and I should think would prove a good keeper. Medium early.

~Alsacian Drumhead.~ Stump long; late; wild.

~Marbled Bourgogne.~ Stumps long; heads small and hard; color, a mixture of green and red.

CABBAGE GREENS.

In the vicinity of our large cities, the market gardeners sow large areas very thickly with cabbage seed, early in the spring, to raise young plants to be sold as greens. The seed is sown broadcast at the rate of ten pounds and upwards to the acre. Seed of the Savoy cabbage is usually sown for this purpose, which may be sometimes purchased at a discount, owing to some defect in quality or purity, that would render it worthless for planting for a crop of heading cabbage.

The young plants are cut off about even with the ground, when four or five inches high, washed, and carried to market in barrels or bushel boxes. The price varies with the state of the market, from 12 cents to $3 a barrel, the average price in Boston market being about a dollar.

With the return of spring most families have some cabbage stumps remaining in the cellar; these can be planted about a foot apart in some handy spot along the edge of the garden, where they will not interfere with the general crop, setting them under ground from a quarter to a half their length, depending on the length of the stumps. They will soon be covered with green shoots, which should be used as greens before the blossom buds show themselves, as they then become too strong to be agreeable. If the spot is rich and has been well dug, the rapidity of growth is surprising; and if the shoots are frequently gathered, many nice messes of greens can be grown from a few stumps. Farmers in Northern Vermont tell me, that if they break off each seed shoot as soon as it shows itself, close home to the stump, nice little heads will push out on almost every stump. In England, where the winter climate is much milder than that of New England, it is the practice to raise a second crop of heads in this way. In my own neighborhood I have seen an acre from which a crop of drumhead cabbage had been cut off early in the season, every stump on which had from three to six hard heads, varying from the size of a hen's egg to that of a goose egg; but to get this second growth of heads, as much of the stump and leaves should be left as possible, when cutting out the original head. As in the cabbage districts of the North little or no use is made of this prolific after growth, it is worse than useless to suffer the ground to be exhausted by it; the stump should be pulled by the potato hoe as soon as the heads are marketed. When cabbages are planted out for seed, if, for any reason, the seed shoot fails to push out, and at times when it does push out, fine sprouts for greens will start below the head; when the stock of these sprouts becomes too tough for use, the large leaves may be stripped from them and cooked. I usually break off the tender tops of large sprouts, and then strip off the tenderest of the large leaves below.

CABBAGE FOR STOCK.

No vegetable raised in the temperate zone, Mangold Wurtzel alone excepted, will produce as much food to the acre, both for man and beast, as the cabbage. I have seen acres of the Marblehead Mammoth drumhead which would average thirty pounds to each cabbage, some specimens weighing over sixty pounds. The plants were four feet apart each way which would give a product of over forty tons to the acre; and I have tested a crop of Fottler's that yielded thirty tons of green food to the half acre. Other vegetables are at times raised for cattle feed, such as potatoes, carrots, ruta bagas, mangold wurtzels; a crop of potatoes yielding four hundred bushels to the acre at sixty pounds the bushel would weigh twelve tons; a crop of carrot yielding twelve hundred bushels to the acre would weigh thirty tons; ruta bagas sometimes yield thirty tons; and mangolds as high as seventy tons to the acre. I have set all these crops at a high capacity for fodder purposes; the same favoring conditions of soil, manure, and cultivation that would produce four hundred bushels of potatoes, twelve hundred bushels of carrots, and thirty-five tons of ruta baga turnips, would give a crop of forty tons of the largest variety of drumhead cabbage. If we now consider the comparative merits of these crops for nutriment, we find that the cabbage excels them all in this department also. The potatoes abound in starch, the mangold and carrot are largely composed of water, while the cabbage abounds in rich, nitrogeneous food.

Prof. Stewart states that cabbage for milch cows has about the same feeding value as sweet corn ensilage, and makes the value not over $3.40 per ton. Now it is admitted by general current that the value of common ensilage, which is inferior to that made from sweet corn, is, when compared with good English hay, as 3 to 1. This would make cabbages for milch cows worth not far from $7.00 per ton.

When cabbage is kept for stock feed later than the first severe frost, if the quant.i.ty is large there is considerable waste even with the best of care. The loose leaves should be fed first, and the heads kept in a cool place, not more than two or three deep, at as near the freezing point as possible. If it has been necessary to cut the heads from the stumps, they may be piled, after the weather has set in decidedly cold, conveniently near the barn, and kept covered with a foot of straw or old litter. As long as a cabbage is kept frozen there is no waste to it; but if it be allowed to freeze and thaw two or three times, it will soon rot with an awful stench. I suspect that it is this rotten portion of the cabbage that often gives the bad flavor to milk. On the other hand, if it is kept in too warm and dry a place, the outer leaves will dry, turning yellow, and the whole head lose in weight,--if it be not very hard, shrivelling, and, if hard, shrinking. If they are kept in too warm and wet a place, the heads will decay fast, in a black, soft rot. The best way to preserve cabbages for stock into the winter, is to place them in trenches a few inches below the surface, and there cover with from a foot to two feet of coa.r.s.e hay or straw, the depth depending on the coldness of the locality. When the ground has been frozen too hard to open with a plough or spade, I have kept them until spring by piling them loosely, hay-stack shape, about four feet high, letting the frost strike through them, and afterwards covering with a couple of feet of eel-gra.s.s; straw or coa.r.s.e hay would doubtless do as well.

I have treated of cabbage thus far when grown specially for stock; in every piece of cabbage handled for market purposes, there is a large proportion of waste suitable for stock feed, which includes the outside leaves and such heads as have not hardened up sufficiently for market.

On walking over a piece just after my cabbages for seed stock have been taken off, I note that the refuse leaves that were stripped from the heads before pulling are so abundant they nearly cover the ground. If leaves so stripped remain exposed to frost, they soon spoil; or, if earlier in the season they are exposed to the sun, they soon become yellow, dry, and of but little value. They can be rapidly collected with a hay fork and carted, if there be but a few, into the barn; should there be a large quant.i.ty, dump them within a convenient distance of the barn or feeding ground, but not where the cattle can trample them, and spread them so that they will be but a few inches in depth. If piled in heaps they will quickly heat; but even then, if not too much decayed, cattle will eat them with avidity. Cabbages are hardy plants, and loose heads will stand a good deal of freezing and thawing without serious injury. They are not generally injured with the thermometer 16 below freezing. The waste, after the seed and all market cabbage are removed, brings me about $10 per acre on the ground, for cow feed.

If cabbage is fed to cows in milk without some care, it will be apt to give the milk a strong cabbage flavor; all the feed for the day should be given early in the morning. Beginning with a small quant.i.ty, and gradually increasing it, the dairy man will soon learn his limits. The effect of a liberal feed to milk stock is to largely increase the flow of milk. Avoid feeding to any extent while the leaves are frozen.

An English writer says: "The cabbage comes into use when other things begin to fail, and it is by far the best succulent vegetable for milking cows,--keeping up the yield of milk, and preserving, better than any other food, some portion of the quality which cheese loses when the cows quit their natural pasturage. Cows fed on cabbages are always quiet and satisfied, while on turnips they often scour and are restless. When frosted, they are liable to produce hoven, unless kept in a warm shed to thaw before being used; fifty-six pounds given, at two meals, are as much as a large cow should have in a day. Frequent cases of abortion are caused by an over-supply of green food. Cabbages are excellent for young animals, keeping them in health, and preventing 'black leg.' A calf of seven months may have twenty pounds a day."

RAISING CABBAGE SEED.

Cabbage seed in England, particularly of the drumhead sorts, is mostly raised from stumps, or from the refuse that remains after all that is salable has been disposed of. The agent of one of the largest English seed houses, a few years since, laughed at my "wastefulness," as he termed it, in raising seed from solid heads. In our country, cabbage seed is mostly raised from soft, half-formed heads, which are grown as a late crop, few, if any of them, being hard enough to be of any value in the market. Seedsmen practise selecting a few fine, hard heads, from which to raise their seed stock. It has been my practice to grow seed from none but extra fine heads, better than the average of those carried to market. I do this on the theory that no cabbage can be too good for a seedhead, if the design is to keep the stock first-cla.s.s. Perhaps such strictness may not be necessary; but I had rather err in setting out too good heads than too poor ones; besides, the great hardness obtained by the heads of the Stone Mason, makes it possible, at least, that I am right. Cabbage raised from seed grown from stumps are apt to be unreliable for heading, and to grow long-stumped, though under unfavorable conditions, long-stumped and poor-headed cabbage may grow from the best of seed. To have the best of seed, all shoots that start below the head should be broken off. To prevent the plants falling over after the seed-stalks are grown, dig deep holes, and plant the entire stump in the ground. Scarecrows should be set up, or some like precaution be taken, to keep away the little seed-birds, that begin to crack the pods as soon as they commence to ripen. A plaster cat is a very good scarecrow to frighten away birds from seed and small fruits, if its location is changed every few days.

I find that the pods of cabbage seed grown South are tough, and not brittle, like those grown North, and hence that they are injured but little, if any, by seed birds. When the seed-pods have pa.s.sed what seedsmen call their "red" stage, they begin to harden; as soon as a third of them are brown, the entire stalk may be cut and hung up in a dry, airy place, for a few days, when the seed will be ready for rubbing or thres.h.i.+ng out. Different varieties should be raised far apart to insure purity; and cabbage seed had better not be raised in the vicinity of turnip seed. There is some difference of opinion as to the effect of growing these near each other; where the two vegetables blossom at the same time, I should fear an admixture. When the care requisite to select good seed stock, and the trouble, and, often, great loss, in keeping it over winter, planting it in isolated locations, protecting it from wind and weather, guarding it from injury from birds and other enemies, gathering it, cleaning it, are all considered, few men will find that they can afford to raise their own seed, provided they can buy it from reliable seedsmen.

COOKING CABBAGE, SOUR-KROUT, ETC.

Cabbage when boiled with salt pork, as it is mostly used, is the food for strong and healthy digestive powers; but when eaten in its raw state, served with vinegar and pepper, it is considered one of the most easily digested articles of diet. In the process of cooking, even with the greatest care, a large portion of the sweetness is lost. The length of time required to cook cabbage by boiling varies with the quality, those of the best quality requiring about twenty minutes, while others require an hour. In cooking put it into boiling water in which a little salt and soda has been sprinkled, which will tend to preserve the natural green color. It will be well to change the water once. The peculiar aroma given out by cabbage when cooking is thought to depend somewhat on the manner in which it is grown; those having been raised with the least rank manure having the least. I think this is one of the whims of the community. By using some varieties of boilers all steam is carried into the fire, and there is no smell in the house.

To _Pickle_, select hard heads, quarter them, soak in salt and water four or five days, then drain and treat as for other pickles, with vinegar spiced to suit.

For _Cold Slaw_, select hard heads, halve and then slice up these halves exceedingly fine. Lay these in a deep dish, and pour over vinegar that has been raised to the boiling point in which has been mixed a little pepper and salt.

_Sour-Krout._ Take large, hard-headed drumheads, halve, and cut very fine; then pack in a clean, tight barrel, beginning with a sprinkling of salt, and following with a layer of cabbage, and thus alternating until the barrel is filled. Now compact the ma.s.s as much as possible by pounding, after which put on a well-fitting cover resting on the cabbage, and lay heavy weights or a stone on this. When fermented it is ready for use. To prepare for the table fry in b.u.t.ter or fat.

The outer green leaves of cabbages are sometimes used to line a bra.s.s or copper kettle in which pickles are made in the belief that the vinegar extracts the coloring substance (chlorophyl) in the leaves, and the cuc.u.mbers absorbing this acquire a rich green color. Be not deceived by this transparent cheat, O simple housewife! the coloring matter comes almost wholly from the copper or bra.s.s behind those leaves; and, instead of an innocent vegetable pigment, your green cuc.u.mbers are dyed with the poisonous carbonate of copper.

CABBAGES UNDER GLa.s.s.

The very early cabbages usually bringing high prices, the enterprising market gardener either winters the young plants under gla.s.s or starts them there, planting the seed under its protecting shelter long before the cold of winter is pa.s.sed. When the design is to winter over fall grown plants, the seed are planted in the open ground about the middle of September, and at about the last of October they are ready to go into the cold frames, as such are called that depend wholly on the sun for heat. Select those having short stumps and transplant into the frames, about an inch and a half by two inches apart, setting them deep in the soil up to the lower leaves, shading them with a straw mat, or the like, for a few days, after which let them remain without any gla.s.s over them until the frost is severe enough to begin to freeze the ground, then place over the sashes; but bear in mind that the object is not to promote growth, but, as nearly as possible, to keep them in a dormant state, to keep them so cold that they will not grow, and just sufficiently protected to prevent injury from freezing. With this object in view the sashes must be raised whenever the temperature is above freezing, and this process will so harden the plants that they will receive no serious injury though the ground under the sash should freeze two inches deep; cabbage plants will stand a temperature of fifteen to twenty degrees below the freezing point. A covering of snow on the sash will do no harm, if it does not last longer than a week or ten days, in which case it must be removed. There is some danger to be feared from ground mice, who, when everything else is locked up by the frost, will instinctively take to the sash, and there cause much destruction among the plants unless these are occasionally examined. When March opens remove the sash when the temperature will allow, replacing it when the weather is unseasonably cold, particularly at night. The plants may be brought still farther forward by transferring them from the hot-bed when two or three inches high to cold frames, having first somewhat hardened them. When so transferred plant them about an inch apart, and s.h.i.+eld from the sun for two or three days. After this they may be treated as in cold frames. The transfer tends to keep them stocky, increases the fibrous roots and makes the plants hardier. As the month advances it may be left entirely off, and about the first of April the plants may be set out in the open field, pressing fine earth firmly around the roots.

When cabbages are raised in hot-beds the seed, in the lat.i.tude of Boston, should be planted on the first of March; in that of New York, about a fortnight earlier. When two or three inches high, which will be in three or four weeks, they should be thinned to about four or less to an inch in the row. They should now be well hardened by partly drawing off the sashes in the warm part of the day, and covering at night; as the season advances remove the sashes entirely by day, covering only at night. By about the middle of April the plants will be ready for the open ground.

When raised in cold frames in the spring, the seed should be planted about the first of April, mats being used to retain by night the solar heat acc.u.mulated during the day. As the season advances the same process of hardening will be necessary as with those raised in hot-beds.

COLD FRAME AND HOT-BED.

To carry on hot-beds on a large scale successfully is almost an art in itself, and for fuller details I will refer my readers to works on gardening. Early plants, in a small way, may be raised in flower pots or boxes in a warm kitchen window. It is best, if practicable, to have but one plant in each pot, that they may grow short and stocky. If the seed are not planted earlier than April, for out-of-door cultivation, a cold frame will answer.

For a cold frame select the locality in the fall, choosing a warm location on a southern slope, protected by a fence or building on the north and north-west. Set posts in the ground, nail two boards to these parallel to each other, one about a foot in height, and the other towards the south about four inches narrower; this will give the sashes resting on them the right slope to shed the rain and receive as much heat as possible from the sun. Have these boards at a distance apart equal to the length of the sash, which may be any common window sash for a small bed, while three and a half feet is the length of a common gardener's sash. If common window sash is used cut channels in the cross-bars to let the water run off. Dig the ground thoroughly (it is best to cover it in the fall with litter, to keep the frost out) and rake out all stones or clods; then slide in the sash and let it remain closed for three or four days, that the soil may be warmed by the sun's rays. The two end boards and the bottom board should rise as high as the sash, to prevent the heat escaping, and the bottom board of a small frame should have a strip nailed inside to rest the sash on. Next rake in, thoroughly, guano, or phosphate, or finely pulverized hen manure, and plant in rows four to six inches apart. As the season advances raise the sashes an inch or two, in the middle of the day, and water freely, at evening, with water that is nearly of the temperature of the earth in the frame. As the heat of the season increases whitewash the gla.s.s, and keep them more and more open until just before the plants are set in open ground, then allow the gla.s.s to remain entirely off, both day and night, unless there should be a cold rain. This will harden them so that they will not be apt to be injured by the cabbage beetle, as well as chilled and put back by the change. Should the plants be getting too large before the season for transplanting, they should be checked by root pruning,--drawing a sharp knife within a couple of inches of the stalk. If it is desirable still further to check their growth, or harden them, transplant into another cold frame, allowing each plant double the distance it before occupied.

The structure and management of a hot-bed is much the same as that of a cold frame, with the exception that the sashes are usually longer and the back and front somewhat higher; being started earlier the requisite temperature has to be kept up by artificial means, fermenting manure being relied upon for the purpose; and the loss of this heat has to be checked more carefully by straw matting, and, in the far North, by shutters also. In constructing it, horse-manure, with plenty of litter, and about a quarter its bulk in leaves, if attainable, all having been well mixed together, is thrown into a pile, and left for a few days until steam escapes, when the ma.s.s is again thrown over and left for two or three days more, after which it is thrown into the pit (or it may be placed directly on the surface) which is lined with boards, from eighteen inches to two feet in depth, when it is beaten down with a fork and trodden well together. The sashes are now put on and kept there until heat is developed. The first intense heat must be allowed to pa.s.s off, which will be in about three days after the high temperature is reached. Now throw on six or eight inches of fine soil, in which mix well rotted manure, free from all straw, or rake in, thoroughly, superphosphate, or guano, at the rate of two thousand pounds to the acre, and plant the seed as in cold frame. Harden the plants as directed in preceding paragraph.

CAULIFLOWER, BROCCOLI, BRUSSELS-SPROUTS, KALE, AND SEA-KALE.

My treatise on the cabbage would hardly be complete without some allusion to such prominent members of the Bra.s.sica family as the cauliflower, broccoli, brussels-sprouts, and kale.

~Cauliflower.~ Wrote the great Dr. Johnson: "Of all the flowers of the garden, give me the cauliflower." Whether from this we are to infer the surpa.s.sing excellence of this member of the Bra.s.sica family, or that the distinguished lexicographer meant emphatically to state his preference of utility to beauty (perhaps our own Ben. Franklin took a leaf from him), each reader must be his own judge; but be that as it may, it remains true, beyond all controversy, that the cauliflower, in toothsome excellence, stands at the head of the great family of which it is a member. To be successful, and raise choice cauliflowers, is the height of the ambition of the market gardener; and, with all his experience, and with every facility at hand, he does not expect full success oftener than three years in four. The cauliflower, like the strawberry, is exceedingly sensitive to the presence or absence of sufficient water, and success or failure with the crop may turn on its having a full supply from the time they are half grown. The finest specimens raised in Europe are grown in beds, which are kept well watered from the supply which runs between them; and the most successful growers in the country irrigate their crops during periods of drouth. Cauliflowers do best on deep, rich, rather moist soils. In the way of food, they want the very best, and plenty of it at that. The successful compet.i.tor, who won the first prize at the great Bay State Fair, to the disgusted surprise of a grower justly famous for his almost uniform success in winning the laurels, whispered in my ear his secret: "R. manures very heavily in the spring for his crop. I manure very heavily both fall and spring." In manuring, therefore, do as well by them as by your heaviest crop of large drumhead cabbage, using rich and well-rotted manure, broadcast, with dissolved bone or ashes, or both, in the drill. Plough deep, and work the land very thoroughly, two ploughings, with a harrowing between, are better than one. Give plenty of room; three by three for the smaller sorts, and three by three and a half for the later and larger. They need the same cultivation, and, being subject to the same diseases and injury from insect enemies, need the same protection as their cousins of the cabbage tribe. In raising for the summer market, start in the cold frame, or plant as early as the ground can be worked, that the plants may get well started before the dry season, or the crop will be likely to make such small heads "b.u.t.tons" as to be practically a failure. For late crop, plant seed in the hills where they are to grow, from the 20th of May to the middle of June. The crop ripens somewhat irregularly. When there is danger from frost, the later heads should be pulled and stored, with both roots and leaves, being crowded, standing as they grew, into a cold cellar or cold pit, when they will continue growing. As soon as the heads begin to form, they should be protected from sunlight by either half breaking off the outer leaves and bending them over them, or by gathering these leaves loosely together and confining them loosely by rough pegs, or by tying them together with a wisp of rye-straw.

~Varieties.~ These are almost as numerous as in the cabbage family. I find notes on some thirty-five varieties, tested from year to year, in my experimental grounds. Most of them prove themselves to be but a lottery, in this country of dry seasons, though in the moister climate of the European localities, where they are at home, they are a success.

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