Chapter 2
The usual way of preparing the hills is to strike out furrows with a small, one-horse plough, as far apart as the rows are to be. As it is very important that the rows should be as straight as practicable, it is a good plan to run back once in each furrow, particularly on sod land where the plough will be apt to catch in the turf and jump out of line. A manure team follows, containing the dressing for the hills, which has previously been pitched over and beaten up until all the ingredients are fine and well mixed. This team is so driven, if possible, as to avoid running in the furrows. Two or three hands follow with forks or shovels, pitching the manure into the furrows at the distance apart that has been determined on for the hills. How far apart these are to be will depend on the varieties, from eighteen inches to four feet. On land that has been very highly manured for a series of years, cabbage can be planted nearer than on land that has been under the plow but a few years. For the distance apart for different varieties see farther on. The manure is levelled with hoes, a little soil is drawn over it, and a slight stamp with the back of the hoe is given to level this soil, and, at the same time, to mark the hill. The planter follows with seed in a tin box, or any small vessel having a broad bottom, and taking a small pinch between the thumb and forefinger he gives a slight scratch with the remaining fingers of the same hand, and dropping in about half a dozen seed covers them half an inch deep with a sweep of the hand, and packs the earth by a gentle pat with the open palm to keep the moisture in the ground and thus promote the vegetation of the seed. With care a quarter of a pound of seed will plant an acre, when dropped directly in the hills; but half a pound is the common allowance, as there is usually some waste from spilling, while most laborers plant with a free hand.
The soil over the hills being very light and porous, careless hands are apt to drop the seed too deep. Care should be taken not to drop the seed all in one spot, but to scatter them over a surface of two or three inches square, that each plant may have room to develop without crowding its neighbors.
If the seed is planted in a line instead of in a mass the plants can be left longer before the final thinning without danger of growing tall and weak.
If the seed is to be drilled in, it will be necessary to scatter the manure all along the furrows, then cover with a plough, roughly leveling with a rake.
Should the compost applied to the hills be very concentrated, it will be apt to produce stump foot; it will, therefore, be safest in such cases to hollow out the middle with the corner of the hoe, or draw the hoe through and fill in with earth, that the roots of the young plants may not come in direct contact with the compost as soon as they begin to push.
When guano or phosphates are used in the hills it will be well to mark out the rows with a plough, and then, where each hill is to be, fill in the soil level to the surface with a hoe, before applying them. I have, in a previous paragraph, given full instructions how to apply these. Hen manure, if moist, should be broken up very fine, and be mixed with some dry earth to prevent it from again lumping together, and the mixture applied in sufficient quantity to make an equivalent of a heaping handful of pure hen manure to each hill. Any liquid manure is excellent for the cabbage crop; but it should be well diluted, or it will be likely to produce stump foot.
Cabbage seed of almost all varieties are nearly round in form, but are not so spherical as turnip seed. I note, however, that seed of the Savoys are nearly oval. In color they are light brown when first gathered, but gradually turn dark brown if not gathered too early. An ounce contains nearly ten thousand seed, but should not be relied upon for many over two thousand good plants, and these are available for about as many hills only when raised in beds and transplanted; when dropped directly in the hills it will take not far from eight ounces of the larger sorts to plant an acre, and of the smaller cabbage rather more than this. Cabbage seed when well cured and kept in close bags will retain their vitality four or five years; old gardeners prefer seed of all the cabbage family two or three years old.
When the plan is to raise the young plants in beds to be transplanted, the ground selected for the beds should be of rich soil; this should be very thoroughly dug, and the surface worked and raked very fine, every stone and lump of earth being removed. Now sprinkle the seed evenly over the bed and gently rake in just under the surface, compacting the soil by pressure with a board. As soon as the young plants appear, sprinkle them with air-slaked lime. Transplant when three or four inches high, being very careful not to let the plants get tall and weak.
For late cabbage, in the latitude of Boston, to have cabbages ready for market about the first of November, the Marblehead Mammoth should be planted the 20th of May, other late drumheads from June 1st to June 12th, provided the plants are not to be transplanted; otherwise a week earlier. In those localities where the growing season is later, the seed should be planted proportionally later.
CARE OF THE YOUNG PLANTS.
In four or five days, if the weather is propitious, the young plants will begin to break ground, presenting at the surface two leaves, which together make nearly a square, like the first leaves of turnips or radishes. As soon as the third leaf is developed, go over the piece, and boldly thin out the plants. Wherever they are very thick, pull a mass of them with the fingers and thumb, being careful to fill up the hole made with fine earth. After the fourth leaf is developed, go over the piece again and thin still more; you need specially to guard against a slender, weak growth, which will happen when the plants are too crowded. In thinning, leave the short-stumped plants, and leave them as far apart in the hill as possible, that they may not shade each other, or so interfere in growing as to make long stumps. If there is any market for young plants, thousands can be sold from an acre when the seed are planted in the hill; but in doing this bear in mind that your principal object is to raise cabbages, and to succeed in this the young plants must on no account be allowed to stand so long together in the hills as to crowd each other, making a tall, weak, slender growth,--getting "long-legged," as the farmers call it.
If the manure in any of the hills is too strong, the fact will be known by its effects on the plants, which will be checked in their growth, and be of a darker green color than the healthy plants. Gently pull away the earth from the roots of such with the fingers, and draw around fresh earth; or, what is as well or better, transplant a healthy plant just on the edge of the hill. When the plants are finger high they are of a good size to transplant into such hills as have missed, or to market. When transplanting, select a rainy day, if possible, and do not begin until sufficient rain has fallen to moisten the earth around the roots, which will make it more likely to adhere to them when taken up. Take up the young plants by running the finger or a trowel under them; put these into a flat basket or box, and in transplanting set them to the same depth they originally grew, pressing the earth a little about the roots.
If it is necessary to do the transplanting in a dry spell, as usually happens, select the latter part of the afternoon, if practicable, and, making holes with a dibble, or any pointed stick an inch and a half in diameter, fill these holes, a score or more at a time, with water; and as soon as the water is about soaked away, beginning with the hole first filled, set out your plants. The evaporation of the moisture below the roots will keep them moist until they get a hold. Cabbage plants have great tenacity of life, and will rally and grow when they appear to be dead; the leaves may all die, and dry up like hay, but if the stump stands erect and the unfolded leaf at the top of the stump is alive, the plant will usually survive. When the plants are quite large, they may be used successfully by cutting or breaking off the larger leaves. Some advocate wilting the plants before transplanting, piling them in the cellar a few days before setting them out, to toughen them and get a new setting of fine roots; others challenge their vigor by making it a rule to do all transplanting under the heat of mid-day. I think there is not much of reason in this latter course. The young plants can be set out almost as fast as a man can walk, by holding the roots close to one side of the hole made by the dibble, and at the same moment pressing earth against them with the other hand.
PROTECTING THE PLANTS FROM THEIR ENEMIES.
As soon as they have broken through the soil, an enemy awaits them in the small black insect commonly known as the cabbage or turnip fly, beetle, or flea. This insect, though so small as to appear to the eye as a black dot, is very voracious and surprisingly active. He apparently feeds on the juice of the young plant, perforating it with small holes the size of a pin point. He is so active when disturbed that his motions cannot be followed by the eye, and his sense of danger is so keen that only by cautiously approaching the plant can he be seen at all. The delay of a single day in protecting the young plants from his ravages will sometimes be the destruction of nearly the entire piece. Wood ashes and air-slaked lime, sprinkled upon the plants while the leaves are moist from either rain or dew, afford almost complete protection. The lime or ashes should be applied as soon as the plant can be seen, for then, when they are in their tenderest condition, the fly is most destructive. I am not certain that the alkaline nature of these affords the protection, or whether a mere covering by common dust might not answer equally well. Should the covering be washed off by rain, apply it anew immediately after the rain has ceased, and so continue to keep the young plants covered until the third or fourth leaves are developed when they will have become too tough to serve as food for this insect enemy.
A new enemy much dreaded by all cabbage raisers will begin to make his appearance about the time the flea disappears, known as the cut-worm. This worm is of a dusky brown color, with a dark colored head, and varies in size up to about two inches in length. He burrows in the ground just below the surface, is slow of motion, and does his mischievous work at night, gnawing off the young plants close at the surface of the ground. This enemy is hard to battle with. If the patch be small, these worms can be scratched out of their hiding places by pulling the earth carefully away the following morning for a few inches around the stump of the plant destroyed, when the rascals will usually be found half coiled together. Dropping a little wood ashes around the plants close to the stumps is one of the best of remedies; its alkaline properties burning his nose I presume. A tunnel of paper put around the stump but not touching it, and sunk just below the surface, is recommended as efficacious; and from the habits of the worm I should think it would prove so. Perpendicular holes four inches deep and an inch in diameter is said to catch and hold them as effectively as do the pit falls of Africa the wild animals. Late planted cabbage will suffer little or none from this pest, as he disappears about the middle of June. Some seasons they are remarkably numerous, making it necessary to replant portions of the cabbage patch several times over. I have heard of as many as twenty being dug at different times the same season out of one cabbage hill. The farmer who tilled that patch earned his dollars. When the cabbage has a stump the size of a pipe stem it is beyond the destructive ravages of the cut-worm, and should it escape stump foot has usually quite a period of growth free from the attacks of enemies. Should the season prove unpropitious and the plant be checked in its growth, it will be apt to become "lousy," as the farmers term it, referring to its condition when attacked by a small green insect known as aphidæ, which preys upon it in myriads; when this is the case the leaves lose their bright green, turn of a bluish cast, the leaf stocks lose somewhat of their supporting powers, the leaves curl up into irregular shapes, and the lower layer turns black and drops off, while the ground under the plant appears covered with the casts or bodies of the insects as with a white powder. When in this condition the plants are in a very bad way.
Considering the circumstances under which this insect appears, usually in a very dry season, I hold that it is rather the product than the cause of disease, as with the bark louse on our apple-trees; as a remedy I advocate sprinkling the plants with air-slaked lime, watering, if possible, and a frequent and thorough stirring of the soil with the cultivator and hoe. The better the opportunities the cabbage have to develop themselves through high manuring, sufficient moisture, good drainage, and thorough cultivation, the less liable they are to be "lousy." As the season advances there will sometimes be found patches eaten out of the leaves, leaving nothing but the skeleton of leaf veins; an examination will show a band of caterpillars of a light green color at work, who feed in a compact mass, oftentimes a square, with as much regularity as though under the best of military discipline. The readiest way to dispose of them is to break off the leaf and crush them under foot. The common large red caterpillar occasionally preys on the plants, eating large holes in the leaves, especially about the head. When the cabbage plot is bordered by grass land, in seasons when grasshoppers are plenty, they will frequently destroy the outer rows, puncturing the leaves with small holes, and feeding on them until little besides their skeletons remain. In isolated locations rabbits and other vegetable feeders sometimes commit depredations. The snare and the shot-gun are the remedy for these.
Other insects that prey upon the cabbage tribe, in their caterpillar state, are the cabbage moth, white-line, brown-eyed moth, large white garden butterfly, white and green veined butterfly. All of these produce caterpillars, which can be destroyed either by application of air-slaked lime, or by removing the leaves infested and crushing the intruders under foot. The cabbage-fly, father-long-legs, the millipedes, the blue cabbage-fly, brassy cabbage-flea, and two or three other insect enemies are mentioned by McIntosh as infesting the cabbage fields of England; also three species of fungi known as white rust, mildew, and _cylindrosporium concentricum_; these last are destroyed by the sprinkling of air-slaked lime on the leaves. In this country, along the sea coast of the northern section, in open-ground cultivation, there is comparatively but little injury done by these marauders, which are the cause of so much annoyance and loss to our English cousins.
THE GREEN WORM.
A new and troublesome enemy to the cabbage tribe which has made its appearance within a few years, and spread rapidly over a large section of the country, is a green worm, _Anthomia brassicæ_. This pest infests the cabbage tribe at all stages of its growth; it is believed to have been introduced into this country from Europe, by the way of Canada, where it was probably brought in a lot of cabbage. It is the caterpillar of a white butterfly with black spots on its wings. In Europe, this butterfly is preyed on by two or more parasites, which keep it somewhat in check; but its remarkably rapid increase in this country, causing a wail of lamentation to rise in a single season from the cabbage growers over areas of tens of thousands of square miles, proved that when it first appeared it had reached this country without its attendant parasites.
Besides this green worm, there are found in Europe four varieties of caterpillar variously marked, the caterpillars from all of which make great havoc among the cabbage tribe.
The most effective destroyer of this, and about every other insect pest, is what is known as the "Kerosene Emulsion." This is made by churning common kerosene with milk or soap until it is diffused through the liquid.
Take one quart of kerosene oil and pour it into a pint of hot water in which an ounce of common soap has been dissolved; churn this briskly while hot (a force pump is excellent for this), and, when well mixed, which will be in a few minutes, it will be of a creamy consistency; mix one quart to ten or twelve of cold water, and spray or sprinkle it over the plants with a force-pump syringe or a whisk broom.
Another remedy is pyrethrum. Use that which is fresh; either blowing it on in a dry state with a bellows, wherever the worm appears, or using it diluted, at the rate of a tablespoonful to two gallons of water; applying as with the kerosene emulsion. Mr. A. S. Fuller, who is good authority on garden matters, succeeds by applying tar-water. Place a couple of quarts of coal tar in a barrel and fill with water; let it stand forty-eight hours, then dip off, and apply with a watering-pot, or syringe.
Chickens allowed to run freely among the growing plants, the hen being confined in a movable coop, if once attracted to them will fatten on them. This remedy might answer very well for small plots. Large areas in cabbage, in proportion to their size are, as a rule, far less injured by insect enemies than small patches. The worm is of late years less troublesome in the North than formerly.
CLUB OR STUMP FOOT AND MAGGOT.
The great dread of every cabbage grower is a disease of the branching roots, producing a bunchy, gland-like enlargement, known in different localities under the name of club foot, stump foot, underground head, finger and thumb. The result is a check in the ascent of the sap, which causes a defective vitality. There are two theories as to the origin of club foot; one that it is a disease caused by poor soil, bad cultivation, and unsuitable manures; the other that the injury is done by an insect enemy, _Curculio contractus_. It is held by some that the maggots at the root are the progeny of the cabbage flea. This I doubt. This insect, "piercing the skin of the root, deposits its eggs in the holes, lives during a time on the sap of the plant, and then escapes and buries itself for a time in the soil."
If the wart, or gland-like excrescence, is seen while transplanting, throw all such plants away, unless your supply is short; in such case, carefully trim off all the diseased portions with a sharp knife. If the disease is in the growing crop, it will be made evident by the drooping of the leaves under the mid-day sun, leaves of diseased plants drooping more than those of healthy ones, while they will usually have a bluer cast. Should this disease show itself, set the cultivator going immediately, and follow with the hoe, drawing up fresh earth around the plants, which will encourage them to form new fibrous roots; should they do this freely, the plants will be saved, as the attacks of the insect are usually confined to the coarse, branching roots. Should the disease prevail as late as when the plants have reached half their growth, the chances are decidedly against raising a paying crop.
When the land planted is too wet, or the manure in the hill is too strong, this dreaded disease is liable to be found on any soil; but it is most likely to manifest itself on soils that have been previously cropped with cabbage, turnip, or some other member of the Brassica family.
Farmers find that, as a rule, _it is not safe to follow cabbage, ruta baga, or any of the Brassica family, with cabbage, unless three or four years have intervened between the crops_; and I have known an instance in growing the Marblehead Mammoth, where, though five years had intervened, that portion of the piece occupied by the previous crop could be distinctly marked off by the presence of club-foot.
Singular as it may appear, old gardens are an exception to this rule. While it is next to impossible to raise, in old gardens, a fair turnip, free from club-foot, cabbages may be raised year after year on the same soil with impunity, or, at least, with but trifling injury from that disease. This seems to prove, contrary to English authority, that club-foot in the turnip tribe is the effect of a different cause from the same disease in the cabbage family.
There is another position taken by Stephens in his "Book of the Farm," which facts seem to disprove. He puts forth the theory that "all such diseases arise from poverty of the soil, either from want of manure when the soil is naturally poor, or rendered effete by over-cropping." There is a farm on a neck of land belonging to this town (Marblehead, Mass.), which has peculiar advantages for collecting sea kelp and sea moss, and these manures are there used most liberally, particularly in the cultivation of cabbage, from eight to twelve cords of rotten kelp, which is stronger than barn manure, and more suitable food for cabbage, being used to the acre. A few years ago, on a change of tenants, the new incumbent heavily manured a piece for cabbage, and planted it; but, as the season advanced, stump-foot developed in every cabbage on one side of the piece, while all the remainder were healthy. Upon inquiry, he learned that, by mistake, he had overlapped the cabbage plot of last season just so far as the stump-foot extended. In this instance, it could not have been that the cabbage suffered for want of food; for, not only was the piece heavily manured that year and the year previous, but it had been liberally manured through a series of years, and, to a large extent, with the manure which, of all others, the cabbage tribe delight in, rotten kelp and sea mosses. I have known other instances where soil, naturally quite strong, and kept heavily manured for a series of years, has shown stump-foot when cabbage were planted, with intervals of two and three years between. My theory is, that the _mere presence of the cabbage_ causes stump-foot on succeeding crops grown on the same soil. This is proved by the fact that where a piece of land in grass, close adjoining a piece of growing cabbage, had been used for stripping them for market, when this was broken up the next season and planted to cabbage, stump-foot appeared only on that portion where the waste leaves fell the year previous. I have another instance to the same point, told me by an observing farmer, that, on a piece of sod land, on which he ran his cultivator the year previous, when turning his horse every time he had cultivated a row, he had stump-footed cabbage the next season just as far as that cultivator went, dragging, of course, a few leaves and a little earth from the cabbage piece with it. Still, though the mere presence of cabbage causes stump-foot, it is a fact, that, under certain conditions, cabbage can be grown on the same piece of land year after year successfully, with but very little trouble from stump-foot. In this town (Marblehead), though, as I have stated, we cannot, on our farms, follow cabbage with cabbage, even with the highest of manuring and cultivation, yet in the gardens of the town, on the same kind of soil (and our soil is green stone and syenite, not naturally containing lime), there are instances where cabbage has been successfully followed by cabbage, on the same spot, for a quarter of a century and more. In the garden of an aged citizen of this town, cabbages have been raised _on the same spot of land_ for over half a century.