April 30, 187f . J 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



299 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



SEED AND SEED-SOWING. 



OOD seeds of the best kinds with timely and 

 careful sowing contribute very materially to 

 Buccessfal culture. The good seeds are to be 

 obtained with a tolerable degree of certainty 

 from every respectable seedsman, but the 

 sowing is unfortunately but too often so 

 ^V^ badly done that failure is inevitable. Many 



r^ and repeated failures have taught me how 



to exercise the necessary caution and care 

 to ensure success ; I have been several years 

 learning the lesson. Other persons may bo better able to 

 steer clear of rocks and shoals than I have done, but 

 mistakes occur so easily that a danger signal or two can- 

 not but prove useful. 



A short time ago I was asked to recommend a good 

 seedsman. I replied in true Scotch fashion by another 

 question — " From whom did you have your seeds last 

 year ?" A firm of the highest respectability was named ; 

 and my remark that they were perfectly reliable people, 

 fully alive to the importance of sustaining their high 

 reputation by selling only first-class goods, was met 

 with the exclamation, " Oh ! but we had hardly any good 

 vegetables last year ; Peas only twice," &c. The seeds- 

 man was therefore evidently considered blameable — a 

 convenient and natural conclusion, perhaps, but not a 

 very just one. Now, in this instance I happened to know 

 that the evil arose from a poor soil managed by a fac- 

 totum — a very useful and indispensable class of men, but 

 •who cannot fairly be expected to penetrate very deeply 

 into cause and effect in its relation to what they do, and 

 are, therefore, very liable to conclude in perfect good faith 

 that failures, arising simply from their own mismanage- 

 ment, are referable to bad seeds. Such ignorance is 

 manifestly mischievous and hurtful to all concerned, let 

 us try to dispel it. 



Neither a close heavy soil nor a light poor soil are 

 suitable mediums for the vegetation of seed. Enrich both 

 by repeated heavy dressings of minure and leaf mould, 

 and render them open and free by an abundant admix- 

 ture of some hard gritty substance, such as stone chip- 

 pings, shattered brick, or, beet of all, coal ashes ; then 

 by digging in autumn and exposing as much as possible 

 to the action of frost you will find the ground in readi- 

 ness for the seed on the first fine day of spring. This is 

 a thorough and efficient method, preferable to any other, 

 but unfortunately it is not always practicable, makeshifts 

 having to be resorted to in many instances, and when such 

 is the case "little and good" ratber than "much and 

 bad " should be our motto. Instead of scattering broad- 

 oast such few fertilisers as our limited means can com- 

 mand we must concentrate them in drills, trenches, and 

 stations, so as to have the requisite amount of nourish- 

 ment within reach of the earliest roots which spring from 

 the seed as it vegetates. 



Take, for example, a row of Peas. Now, the Pea is a 

 deep-rooting gross feeder, with a free, quick, succulent 

 growth : why, to sow the seed of such a vegetable in a 

 Mo. 786.-VOI. XXX., New Sieies. 



poor inert soil is ridiculous — it is sheer waste, and is 

 quite certain to cause vexatious disappointment, and yet 

 there can be no doubt about its being done season after 

 season, whereas we have only to make a trench a foot 

 deep and wide, laying the excavated soil along the sides, 

 replacing about two-thirds of it with dung, leaf mould, or 

 other decayed vegetable matter, or in fact any substance 

 which appears to us to be sufficiently nutritious for the 

 purpose, then mixing enough of the difplaced soil with it 

 to fill the trench. We next draw a deep drill along the 

 centre, deeper than is absolutely necessary for the seed, 

 which is much too precious to bo left to take its chance 

 in such a rough mixture, so we look about us for some 

 old leaf mould, wood or coal ashes, fine charcoal, shattered 

 brick or stone siftings, making the best mixture of any of 

 these we can find, scattering an inch or two of it along 

 the bottom and sides of the drill ; then comes the seed 

 with a covering of the same fine gritty substance pressed 

 gently down with a spade, and the work is done so well 

 that we may feel certain vegetation and a free robust 

 growth will promptly ensue. We have thus laid the 

 foundation of success, but we must not forget the risk 

 which the seed runs of spoliation from mice and birds. 



I am not afraid of the ravages of snails in such a quick 

 free soil ; it is in a cold, heavy, inert soil that they do so 

 much harm. There are some favoured spots where mice 

 and sparrows are so scarce as to be comparatively harm- 

 less, but in most gardens these pests are so rampant that 

 they cannot be ignored. I have a lively remembrance of 

 the keen mortification of a certain worthy amateur who, 

 after incurring the expense of wire guards, lost the whole 

 of his first sowing of Peas from mice which were screened 

 from observation by the guards. When protection is 

 necessary I much prefer sheets of glass laid singly end to 

 end along each row, with a wire stretched over them to 

 prevent the wind blowing them away, letting the plants 

 lift the glass as they rise above the soil, thus starving out 

 the mice and tantalising the sparrows. Failing the glass 

 we may resort to pieces of slate or roofing tiles, being 

 careful, however, to remove them immediately the Peas 

 reach the surface, and using wire guards or netting to 

 keep off the birds ; the seed vegetating under such opaque 

 coverings quite as readily as it does under glass. 



For smaller seeds, such as Cauliflowers, Brussels Sprouts, 

 and kindred subjects, make the drills deeper than usual 

 to afford space for an inch or two of the same gritty sub- 

 stance as was used for the Peas, enveloping all the seed 

 in a precisely similar manner ; also taking especial care 

 to put netting over the seed beds a few days after sowing; 

 birds' eyes are keener than ours, and they will detect the 

 sprouting growth long before it is visible to us. I have 

 known sand to be used very successfully for covering 

 seed, but I hesitate to recommend it, for in ironstone dis- 

 tricts the whitest sand usually contains sufficient oxide of 

 iron to destroy the seed germs as they start into activity ; 

 sometimes the young growth will force its way through 

 the sand, but even then tbe delicate cuticle of the stem 

 suffers so much from contact with the sand that the 

 plant soon fails. 



No. 1438.— Vol. LV., Olb Series. 



