Cole crops are among the hardy plants of the garden and field, requiring plenty of moisture at the roots, a cool season and cool soil. Hence their name, Cole meaning cool. They are mostly seed-bed crops and need considerable space in which to spread. They are grown for their tops, rather than for their roots or fruits. CABBAGE. Cabbage culture needs a cool deep soil that will hold moisture, and continuous growth from start to finish. Its other essentials are: extra care in the selection of the seed; frequent and thorough surface tillage; avoiding the root maggot, club-root, and rot, by proper rotation of crops, and by destroying the cabbage worm as soon as it appears. “A cabbage head” may mean a stupid man, for “a cabbage head” can’t take care of cabbages. The demand for cabbage has increased more rapidly during the past ten years than for any other vegetable in the market. For sauer kraut alone the demand is enormous. Where a few hundred barrels would supply all the demand twenty years ago, tens of thousands of barrels are now needed annually. Its use was at one time largely confined to the German in this country, but that is no longer true. So there is always a market for cabbage, and if you are willing to take the pains necessary to grow good cabbage, you will find it a paying crop. Cabbage is also largely grown for stock-feeding, and all the animals, from the horses to the fowls, are glad to get it. There are, of course, the two sorts of crops now so usual in market-gardening, the early and the main season crops. The early crop is started under glass either in the hot-bed or forcing house, while the main season crop is sown in seed-beds or in the open. The best soil preparation begins the fall before, with deep plowing and from 10 to 20 tons of manure to the acre. Then, if the land is at all acid or has not recently been limed, it is well to apply lime at the rate of 1000 pounds to the acre, and plow that in along with 50 pounds of nitrate of soda. This will supply the food for the cabbage, which is a gross feeder, and won’t thrive without plenty of food. Farmers who raise it in large quantities, give it three applications of nitrate of soda after it is quite well grown. They use about 50 pounds to the acre each time, about ten days apart.