ure."

MANURES FOR CABBAGE, PARSNIPS, CARROTS, LETTUCE, ONIONS, ETC.

I class these plants together, because, though differing widely in many
respects, they have one feature in common. They are all artificial
productions.

A distinguished amateur horticulturist once said to me, "I do not see
why it is I have so much trouble with lettuce. My land is rich, and the
lettuce grow well, but do not head. They have a tendency to run up to
seed, and soon get tough and bitter."

I advised him to raise his own seed from the best plants--and especially
to reject all plants that showed any tendency to go prematurely to seed.
Furthermore, I told him I thought if he would sow a little
superphosphate of lime with the seed, it would greatly stimulate the
_early_ growth of the lettuce.

As I have said before, superphosphate, when drilled in with the seed,
has a wonderful effect in developing the root-growth of the young plants
of turnips, and I thought it would have the same effect on lettuce,
cabbage, cauliflowers, etc.

"But," said he, "it is not _roots_ that I want, but heads."

"Exactly," said I, "you do not want the plants to follow out their
natural disposition and run up to seed. You want to induce them to throw
out a great abundance of tender leaves. In other words, you want them to
'head.' Just as in the turnip, you do not want them to run up to seed,
but to produce an unnatural development of 'bulb.'"

Thirty years ago, Dr. Gilbert threw out the suggestion, that while it
was evident that turnips required a larger proportion of soluble
phosphates in the soil than wheat; while wheat required a larger
proportion of available nitrogen in the soil, than turnips, it was quite
probable, if we were growing turnips _for seed_, that then, turnips
would require the same kind of manures as wheat.

We want exceedingly rich land for cabbage, especially for an early crop.
This is not merely because a large crop of cabbage takes a large amount
of plant-food out of the soil, but because the cultivated cabbage is an
artificial plant, that requires its food in a concentrated shape. In
popular language, the plants have to be "forced."

According to the analyses of Dr. Anderson, the outside leaves of
cabbage, contain, in round numbers, 91 per cent of water; and the heart
leaves, 94-1/2 per cent. In other words, the green leaves contain 3-1/2
per cent more dry matter than the heart leaves.

Dr. Voelcker, who analyzed more recently s