Cultivation.—Sow in April or May, and thin or transplant to rows eighteen inches apart, and a foot apart in the rows.
Use.—It is used like the Common Cabbage, and is sweet, mild-flavored, and easy of digestion. The young plants are also boiled like coleworts or spinach.
SAVOY.
Savoy Cabbage. Brassica oleracea, var. bullata. Dec.
This class of cabbages derives its popular name from Savoy, a small district adjoining Italy, where the variety originated, and from whence it was introduced into England and France more than a hundred and fifty years ago. The Savoys are distinguished from the common head or close-hearted cabbages by their peculiar, wrinkled, or blistered leaves. According to Decandole, this peculiarity is caused by the fact, that the pulp, or thin portion of the leaf, is developed more rapidly than the ribs and nerves.
Besides the distinction in the structure of the leaves, the Savoys, when compared with the common cabbages, are slower in their development, and have more open or less compactly formed heads. In texture and flavor, they are thought to approach some of the broccolis or cauliflowers; having, generally, little of the peculiar musky odor and taste common to some of the coarser and larger varieties of cabbages.
None of the family are hardier or more easily cultivated than the Savoys; and though they will not quite survive the winter in the open ground, so far from being injured by cold and frosty weather, a certain degree of frost is considered necessary for the complete perfection of their texture and flavor.
Soil.—They succeed best in strong, mellow loam, liberally enriched with well-digested compost.
Sowing.—The first sowing may be made early in a hot-bed, and the plants set in the open ground in May, or as soon as the weather will admit. Subsequent sowings may be made in drills, in the open ground, in May, or early in June. When the seedlings are five or six inches high, thin or transplant to about three feet apart.