Any manure but hog manure for cabbage,—barn manure, rotten kelp, night-soil, guano, fertilizers, wood ashes, fish, salt, glue waste, hen manure, slaughter-house manure. I have used all of these, and found them all good when rightly applied. If pure hog manure is used it is apt to produce that corpulent enlargement of the roots known in different localities as "stump foot," "underground head," "finger and thumb;" but I have found barn manure on which hogs have run, two hogs to each animal, excellent. The cabbage is the rankest of feeders, and to perfect the larger sort a most liberal allowance of the richest composts is required. To grow the smaller varieties either barn-yard manure, guano, fertilizers, or wood ashes, if the soil be in good condition, will answer; though the richer and more abundant the manure the larger are the cabbages, and the earlier the crop will mature.

To perfect the large varieties of drumhead,—by which I mean to make them grow to the greatest size possible,—I want a strong compost of barn-yard manure, with night-soil and muck or fish-waste, and, if possible, rotten kelp. A compost into which night-soil enters as a component is best made by first covering a plot of ground, of easy access, with soil or muck that has been exposed to a winter's frost, to the depth of about eighteen inches, and raising around this a rim about three feet in height, and thickness. Into this the night-soil is poured from carts built for the purpose, until the receptacle is about two-thirds full. Barn manure is now added, being dropped around and covering the outer rim, and, if the supply is sufficient, on the top of the heap also, on which it can be carted after cold weather sets in. Early in spring, the entire mass should be pitched over, thoroughly broken up with the bar and pick where frozen, and the frozen masses thrown on the surface. In pitching over the mass, work the rim in towards the middle of the heap. After the frozen lumps have thawed, give the heap another pitching over, aiming to mix all the materials thoroughly together, and make the entire mass as fine as possible. A covering of sand, thrown over the heap, before the last pitching, will help fine it.

To produce a good crop of cabbages, with a compost of this quality, from six to twelve cords will be required to the acre. If the land is in good heart, by previous high cultivation, or the soil is naturally very strong, six cords will give a fair crop of the small varieties; while, with the same conditions, from nine to twelve cords to the acre will be required to perfect the largest variety grown, the Marblehead Mammoth Drumhead.

Of the other kinds of manure named above, I will treat farther under the head of: