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CHAPTER III. 
SOWING SEEDS~—PLANTING BULBS AND TUBERS——TRANSs 
PLANTING AND WATERING. 
Sowing Seeds.—The principal points to be attended to in sowing 
seeds are, first, to prepare the ground so that the young and tender 
roots thrown out by the seeds may easily penetrate into it; secondly, 
to fix the seeds firmly in the soil; thirdly, to cover them, so as to ex- 
clude the light, which impedes vegetation, and to preserve a suffi- 
ciency of moisture round them to encourage it; and, fourthly, not to 
bury them so deeply as either to deprive them of the beneficial influ- 
ence of the air, or to throw any unnecessary impediments in the way 
of their ascending shoots. 
The preparation of the soil has been already described in the 
chapter on digging, and the reasons why it is necessary have 
been there given; but why seeds should be firmly imbedded in 
it, seems to require explanation. It is well known that gar- 
deners, before they either sow a bed in the kitchen-garden, or a 
patch of flower-seeds in the flower-garden, generally ‘firm the 
ground,” as they cail it, by beating it well with the back of the spade, 
or pressing it with the saucer of a flower-pot; and there can be no 
doubt that this is done in order that the seeds may be firmly im- 
bedded in the soil. When lawns are sown with grass-seeds also, the 
seeds are frequently rolled in, evidently for the same purpose. The 
only question, therefore, is, why is this necessary? and the answer 
appears to be, that a degree of permanence and stability is essential 
to enable nature to accommodate the plant to the situation in which 
it is placed. "When there is this degree of permanence and stability, 
it is astonishing to observe the efforts that plants will make to pro- 
vide for their wants; but without it, seeds will not even vegetate 
