Our cabbages in the garden seem to have come down with something. First, the top parts of their leaves began to dry. Then some exterior leaves got rotten and collapsed leaving the central parts standing alone. Only the transplanted row and a few grown in the original spots are an exception. This morning mother thinned out some sick ones and removed the external half–dry leaves from others. Mother thought close planting might cause the problem. I added that it was the too wet soil that made the cabbages fall ill. In order to prevent such failure, we decided to raise cabbage seedlings and then transplant them next year as we did long past in our native village.