When preparing for market cabbages that have been kept over winter, particularly if they are marketed late in the season, the edges of the leaves of some of the heads will be found to be more or less decayed; do not strip such leaves off, but with a sharp knife cut clean off the decayed edges. The earlier the variety the sooner it needs to be marketed, for, as a rule, cabbages push their shoots in the spring in the order of their earliness. If they have not been sufficiently protected from the cold, the stumps will often rot off close to the head, and sometimes the rot will include the part of the stump that enters the head. If the watery-looking portion can be cut clean out, the head is salable; otherwise it will be apt to have an unpleasant flavor when cooked. As a rule, cabbages for marketing should be trimmed into as compact a form as possible; the heads should be cut off close to the stump, leaving two or three spare leaves to protect them. They may be brought out of the piece in bushel baskets, and be piled on the wagon as high as a hay stack, being kept in place by a stout canvas sheet tied closely down. In the markets of Boston, in the fall of the year, they are usually sold at a price agreed upon by the hundred head; this will vary not only with the size and quality of the cabbage, but with the season, the crop, and the quality in market on that particular day. Within a few years I have known the range of price for the Stone Mason or Fottler cabbage, equal in size and quality, to be from $3 to $17 per hundred; for the Marblehead Mammoth from $6 to $25 per hundred. Cabbages brought to market in the spring are usually sold by weight or by the barrel, at from $1 to $4 per hundred pounds.
The earliest cabbages carried to market sometimes bring extraordinary prices; and this has created a keen competition among market gardeners, each striving to produce the earliest, a difference of a week in marketing oftentimes making a difference of one half in the profits of the crop. Capt. Wyman, who controlled the Early Wyman cabbage for several years, sold some seasons thirty thousand heads if my memory serves me, at pretty much his own price. As a rule, it is the very early and the very late cabbages that sell most profitably. Should the market for very late cabbages prove a poor one, the farmer is not compelled to sell them, no matter at what sacrifice, as would be the case a month earlier; he can pit them, and so keep them over to the early spring market which is almost always a profitable one. In marketing in spring it should be the aim to make sale before the crops of spring greens become plenty, as these replace the cabbage on many tables. By starting cabbage in hot beds a crop of celery or squashes may follow them the same season.
KEEPING CABBAGES THROUGH THE WINTER.
In the comparatively mild climate of England, where there are but few days in the winter months that the ground remains frozen to any depth, the hardy cabbage grows all seasons of the year, and turnips left during winter standing in the ground are fed to sheep by yarding them over the different portions of the field. With the same impunity, in the southern portion of our own country, the cabbages are left unprotected during the winter months; and, in the warmer portions of the South they are principally a winter crop. As we advance farther North, we find that the degree of protection needed is afforded by running the plough along each side of the rows, turning the earth against them, and dropping a little litter on top of the heads. As we advance still farther northward, we find sufficient protection given by but little more than a rough roof of boards thrown over the heads, after removing the cabbages to a sheltered spot and setting them in the ground as near together as they will stand without being in contact, with the tops of the heads just level with the surface.
In the latitude of central New England, cabbages are not secure from injury from frost with less than a foot of earth thrown over the heads. In mild winters a covering of half that depth will be sufficient; but as we have no prophets to foretell our mild winters, a foot of earth is safer than six inches. Where eel-grass can be procured along the sea coast, or there is straw or coarse hay to spare, the better plan is to cover with about six inches of earth, and when this is frozen sufficiently hard to bear a man's weight (which is usually about Thanksgiving time), to scatter over it the eel-grass, forest leaves, straw, or coarse hay, to the depth of another six inches. Eel-grass, which grows on the sandy flats under the ocean along the coast, is preferred to any other covering as it lays light and keeps in dead air which is a non-conductor of heat. Forest leaves are next in value; but snow and water are apt to get among these and freezing solid destroy most of their protecting value. When I use forest leaves, I cover them with coarse hay, and add branches of trees to prevent its being blown away. In keeping cabbages through the winter, three general facts should be borne in mind, viz.: that repeated freezing and thawing will cause them to rot; that excessive moisture or warmth will also cause rot; while a dry air, such as is found in most cellars, will abstract moisture from the leaves, injure the flavor of the cabbage, and cause some of the heads to wilt, and the harder heads to waste. In the Middle States we have mostly to fear the wet of winter, and the plan for keeping for that section should, therefore, have particularly in view protection from moisture, while in the Northern States we have to fear the cold of winter, and, consequently, our plan must there have specially in view protection from cold.
When storing for winter, select a dry day, if possible, sufficiently long after rainy weather to have the leaves free of water,—otherwise they will spout it on to you, and make you the wettest and muddiest scarecrow ever seen off a farm,—then strip all the outer leaves from the head but the two last rows, which are needed to protect it. This may be readily done by drawing in these two rows toward the head with the left hand, while a blow is struck against the remaining leaves with the fist of the right hand. Next pull up the cabbages, which, if they are of the largest varieties, may be expeditiously done by a potato hoe. If they are not intended for seed purposes, stand the heads down and stumps up until the earth on the roots is somewhat dry, when it can be mostly removed by sharp blows against the stump given with a stout stick. In loading do not bruise the heads. Select the place for keeping them in a dry, level location, and, if in the North, a southern exposure, where no water can stand and there can be no wash. To make the pit, run the plough along from two to four furrows, and throw out the soil with the shovel to the requisite depth, which may be from six to ten inches; now, if the design is to roof over the pit, the cabbages may be put in as thickly as they will stand; if the heads are solid they may be either head up or stump up, and two layers deep; but if the heads are soft, then heads up and one deep, and not crowded very close, that they may have room to make heads during the winter. Having excavated an area twelve by six feet, set a couple of posts in the ground midway at each end, projecting about five feet above the surface; connect the two by a joist secured firmly to the top of each, and against this, extending to the ground just outside the pit, lay slabs, boards or poles, and cover the roof that will be thus formed with six inches of straw or old hay, and, if in the North, throw six or eight inches of earth over this. Leave one end open for entrance and to air the pit, closing the other end with straw or hay. In the North close both ends, opening one of them occasionally in mild weather.
When cabbages are pitted on a large scale this system of roofing is too costly and too cumbersome. A few thousand may be kept in a cool root cellar, by putting one layer heads down, and standing another layer heads up between these. Within a few years farmers in the vicinity of Lowell, Mass., have preserved their cabbages over winter, on a large scale, by a new method, with results that have been very satisfactory. They cut off that portion of the stump which contains the root; strip off most of the outer leaves, and then pile the cabbages in piles, six or eight feet high, in double rows, with boards to keep them apart, in cool cellars, which are built half out of ground. The temperature of these, by the judicious opening and closing of windows, is kept as nearly as possibly at the freezing point. The common practice in the North, when many thousands are to be stored for winter and spring sales, is to select a southern exposure having the protection of a fence or wall, if practicable, and, turning furrows with the plough, throw out the earth with shovels, to the depth of about six inches; the cabbages, stripped as before described, are then stored closely together, and straw or coarse hay is thrown over them to the depth of a foot or eighteen inches. Protected thus they are accessible for market at any time during the winter. If the design is to keep them over till spring, the covering may be first six inches of earth, to be followed, as cold increases, with six inches of straw, litter, or eel-grass. This latter is my own practice, with the addition of leaving a ridge of earth between every three or four rows, to act as a support and keep the cabbages from falling over. I am, also, careful to bring the cabbages to the pit as soon as pulled, with the earth among the roots as little disturbed as possible; and, should the roots appear to be dry, to throw a little earth over them after the cabbages are set in the trench. The few loose leaves remaining will prevent the earth from sifting down between the heads, and the air chambers thus made answer a capital purpose in keeping out the cold, as air is one of the best non-conductors of heat. It is said that muck-soil, when well drained, is an excellent one to bury cabbage in, as its antiseptic properties preserve them from decay. If the object is to preserve the cabbage for market purposes only, the heads may be buried in the same position in which they grew, or they may be inverted, the stump having no value in itself; but if for seed purposes, they must be buried head up, as, whatever injures the stump, spoils the whole cabbage for that object. I store between ten and fifty thousand heads annually to raise seed from, and carry them through till planting time with a degree of success varying from a loss, for seed purposes, of from one-half to thirty-three per cent. of the number buried; but, if handled early in spring, many that would be worthless for seed purposes, could be profitably marketed. A few years since, I buried a lot with a depth varying from one to four feet, and found, on uncovering them in the spring, that all had kept, and apparently equally well. In the winter of 1868, excessively cold weather came very early and unexpectedly, before my cabbage plot had received its full covering of litter. The consequence was, the frost penetrated so deep that it froze through the heads into the stumps, and, when spring came, a large portion of them came out spoiled for seed purposes, though most of them sold readily in the market. A cabbage is rendered worthless for seed when the frost strikes through the stump where it joins the head; and though, to the unpractised eye, all may appear right, yet, if the heart of the stump has a water-soaked appearance on being cut into, it will almost uniformly decay just below the head in the course of a few weeks after having been planted out. If there is a probability that the stumps have been frozen through, examine the plot early, and, if it proves so, sell the cabbages for eating purposes, no matter how sound and handsome the heads look; if you delay until time for planting out the cabbage for seed, meanwhile much waste will occur. I once lost heavily in Marblehead Mammoth cabbage by having them buried on a hill-side with a gentle slope. In the course of the winter they fell over on their sides, which let down the soil from above, and, closing the air-chambers between them, brought the huge heads into a mass, and the result was, a large proportion of them rotted badly. At another time, I lost a whole plot by burying them in soil between ledges of rock, which kept the ground very wet when spring opened; the consequence was, every cabbage rotted. If the heads are frozen more than two or three leaves deep before they are pitted they will not come out so handsome in the spring; but cabbages are very hardy, and they readily rally from a little freezing, either in the open ground or after they are buried, though it is best, when they are frozen in the open ground, to let them remain there until the frost comes out before removing them, if it can be done without too much risk of freezing still deeper, as they handle better then, for, being tougher, the leaves are not so easily broken. If the soil is frozen to any depth before the cabbages are removed, the roots will be likely to be injured in the pulling, a matter of no consequence if the cabbages are intended for market, but of some importance if they are for seed raising. Large cabbages are more easily pulled by giving them a little twist; if for seed purposes, this should be avoided, as it injures the stump. A small lot, that are to be used within a month, can be kept hung up by the stump in the cellar of a dwelling-house; they will keep in this way until spring; but the outer leaves will dry and turn yellow, the heads shrink some in size, and be apt to lose in quality. Some practise putting clean chopped straw in the bottom of a box or barrel, wetting it, and covering with heads trimmed ready for cooking, adding again wet straw and a layer of heads, so alternating until the barrel or box is filled, after which it is headed up and kept in a cool place, at, or a little below, the freezing point. No doubt this is an excellent way to preserve a small lot, as it has the two essentials to success, keeping them cool and moist.
Instead of burying them in an upright position, after a deep furrow has been made the cabbages are sometimes laid on their sides two deep, with their roots at the bottom of the furrow, and covered with earth in this position. Where the winter climate is so mild that a shallow covering will be sufficient protection, this method saves much labor.