Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1912-04-25
CABBAGE HARVEST IS
ON AT San JUAN
May Ship Fifty Carloads -Burch and
Hunt Shipping Others Have
Later Crops.

The cabbage harvest Is in full blast
at San Juan Charles NJ Hunt and
Milton Burch are both cutting their
earlier heads. They have already
shipped several cars. The price is
hanging around $4,000 per ton. Last
week it bobbed up to $4,000 The pros
poets are that the later cabbage will
bring from $50 90 to $50 90 per ton.
The frost damaged the January plant
ing in California and Florida so much
that April and May cabbage will prob
ably be scarce and high. This is good
news to some of our farmers who did
not get their cabbage planted until
February.
Hunts feelings verged on enthusi-
asm as he told US of the results he was
getting from his 34-acre field of cabbage
that he planted last November. He
was among the skeptical regarding the
stories he had heard of $500 90 and
$4,000 an acre crops. But he realized
that he could not raise cabbage without
planting it. Now he is reaping the
harvest of his faith.
Although he has just begun to cut,
he has already harvested more money
value from his field than he would re-
alize from 30 bushel crop of wheat
Two tons per acre will clear him
more than a 50-bushel crop of corn.
But he is not raising wheat or corn.
He has at least ten tons of good hard
cabbage heads on each acre of his
field. which, at the lowest price, will
bring him $400 per ton.
Notice another feature of this cab
bage crop These men who are har-
vesting cabbage at Jar Juan have no
press drills sitting in the shed. They
have no self binder stuck in the mud.
They have no threshing outfit like a
freight train trailing up to their barn
They have no big bins for wheat, no
rotting in the shock or growing in
the stack or spelling in the elevator.
They haul their cabbage to the cars,
atom at load and get their money
for it. Their crop has taken five
months to mature instead of ten, and
! their wives have never known that
harvesting or threshing was going on.
Contract field of corn in Nebraska
: with Aeld of cabbage at San Juan,
Texas. Preparation of ground, seed,
cultivation and harvest expenses are
about equal. Planting of cabbage
probably costs about $500 more per
acre than planting corn. At San Juan
we irrigate cabbage about four or fl,
times, which costs about dollar an
acre. We pay $1,000 per acre for the
water, with the privilege of raising
corn or cotton the same year without
additional water charge That makes
the cost of water and irrigation about
$500 or 50. 90 per acre for cabbage. In
all, it probably costs $1,000 more per
acre to raise cabbage than it does to
raise corn. +F
A good average crop of corn is so
bushels per acre; good average price
1.or it is so cents per bushel. A con-
sentative estimate of the cost of rails
ing crop of corn is $1,000. That
gives you net profit per acre of
$4,000 The average crop of cabbage
at San Juan is 10 tons per acre. The
average price is $1,000 per ton. The
cost of raising and marketing a crop
of cabbage is $4,000, leaving an aver
Of
cabbage. These figures give differ
ence of net profit in favor of cabbage
over corn of 1850. 90 per acre.
These average figures on cabbage
can be verified by government statistics
as well as this years crops, while the
figures on corn are probably rather
more liberal than the government or
the average farmer would indorse.
The average price of good corn land
is $4,000 per acre. The average
price of good cabbage land is $4,000
with irrigation water.
The men who are harvesting cabbage
now at San Juan will raise as good a
crop of corn on their fields this year as
the man in the north They will
get from 25 to 80 cents per bushel more
for it than the Iowa farmer. So that
little matter of $4,000 per acre for
winter cabbage belongs in the class
with the soft fabric the ladies call
velvet. A garment of that class looks
good on the street. 1t corresponds
nicely with $4,000 hat. 1t falls too
lightly over my lady's wrist. 1t has
the rustic of opulency when draped
properly over silken petticoat. San
Imam Standard. April ond 1919