The Family Kitchen Gardener (1856)/Portugal Cabbage
PREFACE.
Gardening is one of these occupations that combines pleasure with healthful employment. Reason and history unite in regarding it as the first pursuit that engaged the attention of man.
The fruits of the Garden are appreciated by all, and contribute much to the pleasures and comforts of life. But many possess gardens unworthy of the name: for want of a knowledge of their management they are unable, in season, to supply the wants of their own table. To remedy this deficiency is the object of this compendium. Into it nothing has been admitted that is not of the most practical character. It may be received as the result of thirty years’ experience and observation on the cultivation of vegetables and fruits. To have given the reason for many of the operations recommended, or the process by which certain conclusions have been arrived at, would have enlarged the volume without adding to the value of the advice. It has been the object of the author to describe the preparation of the soil, the mode of culture, and the best varieties of every fruit or vegetable for market or family supply, in the plainest language, and most concise terms. The subjects are arranged in alphabetical order, so that any one, in an instant, for any part of the United States, may see how to cultivate, when and what to sow, and when to reap. Hitherto the works on this subject have been merely repetitions of European writers, not at all adapted to our climate; or when compiled with some degree of consideration as to that, yet simply the names of vegetables have been given, allowing the gardener or amateur, unguided, to select whatever might strike his fancy, without enabling him to supply his wants. In this Manual will be found a short but faithful description of the best vegetables and fruits; their period of maturity or their relative earliness or lateness, with their Botanical, English, French, and German names—a facility not met with in any similar work we have ever seen.
We have omitted a few vegetables of a coarse description, principally raised for cattle, by field culture. Among which are the Portugal, and Cow Cabbage. The former appeared lately as a new vegetable, under the name of Couve Tronchuda, though cultivated twenty years ago under the former name. The latter, also an old vegetable, created some excitement a few years ago; but the mania having died away, it finds its merited place.
The Fruits have been arranged in the order of their attaining maturity, and only the best in their season have been selected. It is presumed that the list will be found a certain guide to those who wish to grow only the best and most prolific sorts. Some selection of this kind has for some time been imperatively called for, by the wants of the gardener, farmer, and amateur, the multiplicity of sorts in the larger works and catalogues rendering them nearly useless to those who merely wish to know those kinds adapted for family or market supply. In illustrating our subject we have endeavored to avoid the use of all technical words, and to make every thing so plain that it can be comprehended by the most illiterate.
In conclusion, if this little manual be the means of diffusing a knowledge of vegetable culture more generally,—of adding to the pleasures of rural life,—of increasing the interest taken in horticultural pursuits; or guiding the gentleman, farmer, or student, in the occupation of his leisure hours, it will have attained the object of
The Author.
Philadelphia, Feb., 1847.