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The giant Jersey cabbage walking stick
FIELDS of giant cabbages are not something you often see in Jersey any more, but a century ago they were essential in keeping Jersey folk upright and making our sheep shine.
Jersey kale, or cow cabbage, has a stalk that can reach up to 18 feet high. It can be grown anywhere, but in the 19th century it was said that only in Jersey could it attain such a height.
At one time the cabbage caused quite a stir in the agricultural world and in the 1830s it was reportedly cultivated in almost every garden. Rumour had it that sheep who fed upon the giant cabbage of the Channel Islands were found to produce wool of the finest silken texture up to 25 inches long.
And as if that was not enough success for one plant, once all the leaves had been eaten, the stalk of the cabbage could then be dried out and transformed into a fashionable walking stick.
A description of how essential this cabbage had once been in the farming world can be found in volume IV of The Farmers' Magazine, January to June 1836. It stated: 'Five of these stupendous cabbages have been found to provide an ample allowance of food for one hundred sheep or ten cows, and the nutrition thence supplied by this delicious vegetable will speedily produce the most surprising improvement in the growth and utility of every description of cattle.'
Today, Islanders only use the cabbage leaves to feed their rabbits - if they use them at all, that is.
To cultivate the giant cabbage it is best to sow the seeds in the first ten days of August. They must be placed two to three feet apart in highly manured ground; within two weeks the cabbages will begin to show above ground. The ground must be covered with seaweed in the following spring or summer to keep it moist.
As they grow, the leaves need to be stripped off the sides of the stalk of the plant. It will take about one year for the cabbage to reach full height and its head should be left as it is.
After 12 months the plant is pulled out of the ground and its top chopped off. This can then be fed to the aforementioned rabbits.
The stalk is then left for an entire year to dry out before it can be manufactured into a walking stick. The root is also left intact because it can be used to make a handle for the end product. The finished result is a light but strong hollow tube of wood, much like bamboo.
This makes it perfect walking stick material, as it is light and strong.
The only person now known to be producing the cabbage in the Island is Bob Redmond, of Jersey Woodturners at Samares Manor. He follows in the footsteps of one of the leading manufacturers and wholesalers of cabbage walking sticks, Henry Charles Gee, who sold sticks at his shop in Beresford Street from the 1870s until 1928, to be followed by his daughter, Nellie Violet Gee.
There are three types of cabbage walking stick: the straight stick with a mounting at the top such as a Jersey 1d; the hook handle; and the crook handle. They can be created either by burying the sticks in a furnace of sand and then boiling them and bending the stick in irons, or by planting the cabbages with the root slanting so that the hook or crook is produced naturally through the plant's growth.
At the turn of the century Mr Gee used to sell up to 600 sticks a year, although by the late 1930s only 150 were being sold.
Jersey's landscape would be very different today if farmers still used the cabbage as feed for their cattle. A comment on the decline of the giant cabbage of the Channel Islands can be found in a book by Dr Southcombe Parker and J Stevens Cox written in 1970.
They say: 'The decline is partly attributable to the fact that people are no longer prepared to make Jersey cabbage walking-sticks in the proper way - a way that demands a lot of hard, hand-punishing work.'
No one, that is, except Mr Redmond, who is the Island's last remaining patient cabbage grower.
This article first appeared in the Jersey Evening Post as part of the Pride in Jersey series, marking the Island's 1204-2004 celebrations.
author - Anna Heuston
This article updated: 2003/09/10 08:53:20
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| ......Daily Ditons...... |
Un cliu mal mîns pathaît mus qu' un creux bein fait.
Better badly patched than well holed.
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