CABBAGES FOR CATTLE.
Extract of a Letter.
Having been in England, I have had an opportunity of observing many improvements in agriculture, which, if I were to see them adopted here, would give me the sincerest pleasure. Among the number of them, I think the culture of cabbages for fattening of cattle stands in the first rank. From strong soils, it may fairly be questioned whether any kind of winter provision can be raised of such weight and quality per acre, as the larger kind of cabbages. For cows, they surpass all other kinds of vegetables, and probably some method may be thought of, by which they may be conveniently preserved through our long winters. The colewort cabbage used to be in most esteem, but I understand that a variety of the large red kind is coming into use, and bids fair to drive out the Scotch drumhead, it being much more hardy. They are exceedingly well adapted to wet land, and will prove very productive where turnips cannot be raised to any good purpose. It is, unquestionably, a crop of far more use and value than the mangel wurzel, which has, in England, within these few years, been in such fashionable culture.
In England and Scotland, I have seen the parings of potatoes planted as seed; and at the same time I was told that they yielded quite as plentifully as cuttings with three eyes, or even whole potatoes.
I never had an opportunity of witnessing the result, but it may be worth while for some experimental agriculturist to plant some in this way, in order to prove or shew the fallacy of the assertion. I should recommend that they cut the parings about two-tenths of an inch in thickness, as those parings which I saw planted always had the eye left in them entire, and the root of the germ not in the least wounded.
[St. John's paper.