The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-03-23

| not 10 work the land until il Is dry
| enough to Crumble. II land is worked
too wet in the spring II viii take a
| long time 70 recover. and viii result
in the partial, If not entire. failure or
your crop I know this requires pa
| thence. especially when you are in a
| hurry to plant in the spring, but II
Will pay.
Last spring We worked one piece or
land too wet. We were in hurry to
/ set out our plants, not only because
we wanted them in the ground. but
] because we needed the beds to set TO-
! mato plants in Well, l have sworn
| never TO do il again. The land became
/ hard when the weather turned dry:
/ the ca bage would not grow. We had
/ put on lots of manure and fertilizer,
but il seemed to do little good. The
plant food in the soil was locked up in
those clOds. Air could not penetrate.
and nirrhcation had stopped. We did
our best to cultivate them. and even
irrigated. but all to no purpose. We
made less than half the crop we should
have grown on that piece Of land.
After your land is thoroughly pre-
pared. plOwed and worked down fine.
the next thing TO consider is the fer
tilzer. 1t Is a difficult matter to make
land too rich for cabbage. An extra
dose of fertilizer pays better on this.
crop than anything l know. We have
a piece OF land upon which we put
twenty-nine tons of manure to the
acre. broadcast, last fall. and then
plOwed the land into ridges. This
spring we shall use a ton of high
grade fertilizer to the acre on this
land, in addition to the manure al
ready applied. We shall put this fer
tiliZer on broadcast and work il into
the surface before setting the plants.
fertilizer for cabbage should be
rich in Potash and nitrogen. and
should analyze. ammonia per cent,
phOsphoric acid per cent. and potash
I per cent To make this fertilizer the
following ingredients may be used Nj
trate Of soda, 300 pounds: cottonseed
meal, $50 pounds; acid phosphate, 700
pounds, and muriate of potash, $50
pounds, to make a ton. Or, instead, if
you prefer, you may Use tankage g
per cent?, 900 pounds: bone meal, 800
pounds, and muriate of potash, 300
pounds. which will do equally as Well
These ingredients should be thorough
ly mixed with a shovel on tight floor
until they are of an even color
throughout
The idea of using so much fertilizer
is to make the land rich throughout
Then, as the cabbage grow, they can
ance to keep them going.
With this early crop, the plants are
set very close together, and they final
ly occupy all the land. We set plants
in our locality in March. The early
Jersey Wakefield, which we prefer for
the earliest, we set one and a half
feet apart, in rows two feet wide,
which takes about 10000 plants to the
acre. These cabbage, if we'll grown,
should average five pounds each,
which, at l cent per pound, means
$500 per acre. These are no fancy fig
ures. We have made it ourselves, and
expect to repeat the process again this
wear.
We prefer to set the plants in
slight depression, as they are less LA
bic to be attacked by cutwOrms We.
therefore, open our rows with a small
bull-tongue pillow. and set the plants
in the furrow.
We begin cultivation almost imme-
diately with horse weeder and culti-
vator, going over the patch at least
once a week, and never allowing a
crust TO form about the plants. A thor
ough hand hoeing should also be Civ
en- them every week or so, and the
cultivation should be kept up until the
plants are too large to work.
When the cabbage are ready to mar
ket, the patch should be gone over
every few days, and the hard heads
out before they begin to crack open
Where the crop is to be shipped, the
outside leaves are trimmed off, and the
heads are then packed in barrel crates.