Ten years' experience in raising carrots and cabbage

Ten years' experience in raising carrots and cabbage by H. A. Cook is a practical agricultural pamphlet written in the mid-19th century. It guides small farmers and gardeners toward efficient, low-cost methods for cultivating, harvesting, storing, and marketing carrots and cabbages, with advice on seed selection, soil preparation, cultivation tools, and simple on-farm management.

The text opens with carrots: choose loose, even loam; plow and manure in fall; rotate; use fresh “long orange” seed. Pre-soak and warm the seed to hasten sprouting, mark straight rows with a homemade dray, and sow by hand through a horn; roll the ground after. Start cultivation as soon as rows show, working deeply with a three-tooth cultivator, then hoe sharply and weed promptly (never on wet soil), stopping horse work once roots reach finger size. Harvest by mowing tops, deep-plowing twice to roll roots out, raking them up, heaping to “sweat” dry, and then storing in bins or pits; carrots are praised as superior feed and kitchen fare, and instructions are given for raising, cleaning, and selecting fresh green seed. For cabbage, select varieties by climate, start plants in a cold frame, and transplant on dry ground using a muck–plaster–ash dip that prevents wilt and speeds recovery; plant in straight lines, cultivate deeply, and promote tight heads with repeated light dressings of a salt–plaster mix; control lice with sifted ashes or soot; harvest late, pull with a crotched stick, and store by trenching loose heads or keeping rooted heads in cellar soil. Brief closing sections argue that five well-manured acres of carrots and cabbage can be highly profitable, explain how to make ample manure with muck and yard waste, offer folk weather signs for planning fieldwork, and end with an advertisement for the author’s spring whiffletree and ox spring.