GEORGE'S CABBAGE TROUBLES
George had a long task in stone picking. The old slope seemed to be full of stone. George would pick continuously from school to supper time, and next morning declare that new stones had grown in the night.
The ditching was very little work. It meant digging a ditch about two feet deep and then making at either end of this gutter a side ditch at a very severe angle to the main ditch. These side ditches were directed along the sides of the hill for about six feet, and the water thus directed would conduct itself off. Of course the angle was such that the ditch led away from the garden spot.
Picture this as the ditch George dug right above his garden. The water passed through the side slopes away from the garden.
As the stones were picked off he piled them into the gutter, where this stony bottom also helped the drainage problem.
George was a master hand at ploughing, for he had always done his share of it, so ploughing meant nothing to him. First, you will remember George had one foot of dressing to put on the land. This he ploughed in; and then reploughed. After this the slope was harrowed. You all know that the harrow simply makes fine the soil after the plough has done its work of throwing up the earth. The rake is a kind of harrow. Of course, when the garden plot is large, the rake is impossible, and then the harrow, really a big rake dragged by a horse, must do this work.
It took the boy longer than some of the others to do his work, for George did more work at home than the others. He was probably better informed on farm matters, however. His father was a real farmer; the other boys' fathers farmed, too, but not as a business.
Anticipating the amount of time this preparatory work would take he had not started his cabbage inside. To get an early crop of cabbage, seed must be planted in January or February; then one may start in March. But for the late crop plant in the open in May or June. This is just what George did.
He made furrows straight down his sunny southern slope. These furrows were two feet apart. The seed, of Savoy cabbage, was sprinkled in the furrows. This was done after rain. Cabbage needs much moisture for quick germination. George might have poured water into the furrows and puddled or stirred the earth a bit, if the garden had been small, but his was too large for this, so he took advantage of Nature's watering. When the plants were about two inches above ground they were thinned out to stand two feet apart in the furrow.
Cabbage, you know, is quite likely to become infested by pests. Perhaps the most common of which are lice or aphis and the cabbage worm, a green caterpillar. Therefore it is well to try a little prevention. So all over the ground about the plants sprinkle unslaked lime. Tobacco dust or soot may be used for this purpose, too. Good cultivation also helps prevent these pests.
One row of cabbage began to develop worms. These George picked off, but he found that he could not keep up with them; so The Chief advised him to buy a little pyrethrum powder at the store. This he mixed with five times its bulk of dust. Putting the mixture into an old potato sack he shook it over the infested heads of cabbage.
Except for this drawback the cabbage did well. He lost the infested row of cabbage. For he pulled them all up, spaded the ground over, and sprinkled it with the poison mixture. All the other cabbage heads were sprinkled with it, too. One may easily lose all his cabbage from these worms.
In the fall the cabbages were harvested. This was about the last of October. George pulled them up by the roots. He found some of the heads rather soft, some bursting open. As it does not pay to keep such cabbage over, these were fed to the cattle—a gift, George called it, to pay for the fertilizer.
All the fine solid heads are worth storing. In order to get nice white inner leaves, as the head begins to form break and bend over the outer leaves and those that protect the inner ones. It is a sort of blanching or bleaching process. Two hundred fine firm heads were the result of the work of this boy.
"What are you going to do with all these, I'd like to know?" asked Jack.
"I expect to store a number of them—one hundred and fifty, I should say. I'm going to give away fifty. In the winter I hope to sell about one hundred of my stored ones."
George's way of storing cabbages is a good one. A spot was ploughed in the orchard between the rows of trees. Then the cabbages were piled in a neat pile roots up, one cabbage fitting into the other. All about and over this heap a layer of straw about four inches thick was placed. To hold the pile in place stakes were driven in about its base. To hold the straw, branches were placed over the whole and boards put on last. The straw packing kept the cabbage from freezing. If George's father had had a good tight shed the cabbage could have been stored on shelves in this. The ordinary home cellar is no place for storage of cabbage.
Later in the winter he sold one hundred heads of cabbage to the markets in a near-by city. These he sold at two cents per head. They kept fifty at home.
The boys tried long and hard to find out where the other fifty went. But George would not tell. There was an orphans' home some few miles from the village. It seems that at one time an appeal had been made at the school to the boys and girls to give whatever they could to this home. At that time George had nothing to give. No one knew how badly the boy felt, so as his cabbages grew the lad made a pledge with himself to give one quarter of his cabbage to this home. One evening in late October, George had hitched up an old farm horse, loaded his cabbage in, and had driven over to the home.
The Chief learned of his kindness one December evening, when he visited the matron to see about Christmas gifts for the children. She told him that one evening in the fall a bashful lad had brought a load of cabbage to her, but would not tell his name. As the man walked home he thought of the really splendid ending of George's cabbage experiment. After all a garden reaches its real work when some of its product is given to those who are in need.
"Now I see," said The Chief out loud, as he walked past George's house on his homeward way, "why George made out of his garden so much less than the others. I never could understand why he lost the prize. I am glad there are boys who care less for money than for other things."