THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 77 



distributed thinly and evenly over the bottom and covered carefully. 

 When sown in a very narrow drill and covered with lumpy soil, as 

 is frequently done, the growth is unsatisfactory from the first, and 

 in most instances the crop is less than it otherwise would be. 



Broad and French beans should be planted with the hand in a 

 double row in each trench ; the rows to be four inches apart, and 

 the seeds to be six inches apart in the rows. If a few miss it will be 

 a matter of no consequence. In sowing these things in heavy soil, it 

 is a most excellent plan to cover with fine soil, such as the siftings 

 from the potting bench mixed with wood ashes and vegetable refuse 

 decayed to a powder. 



The surface of beds intended for onions, carrots, beetroots, and 

 similar things, cannot well be too fine, for the seeds are small, and 

 do not come up so strong and regularly when covered with rough 

 lumps. Soils of a heavy character seldom work well when newly 

 dug over, and a quarter which was turned over in the autumn, and 

 the surface thoroughly pulverized by the action of the weather, 

 should be devoted to these crops. Drills for all these things should 

 be an inch in depth, and in the distance apart vary according to the 

 character of the crop. The drills for onions and carrots should be 

 twelve inches apart, parsnips fifteen inches, and beetroots eighteen 

 inches. After the seeds are sown and the drills filled in, the surface 

 should be well trodden and then raked over, and the alleys marked 

 out, and the beds finished off" in the usual way. 



It is customary to sow cabbage, lettuce, broccolis, and winter 

 greens in square beds ; and as the plants become crowded imme- 

 diately they are a few inches iu height, and spoilt unless transplanted 

 quickly, sowing in these beds cannot be recommended. But by 

 sowing in lines fifteen or eighteen inches apart, the plants have 

 sufficient room to acquire strength before it is needful to transplant, 

 and if from any cause a delay should arise, it will not matter much 

 if the plants remain a fortnight or so beyond the proper time. By 

 this plan of sowing, which I have had in practice for many years 

 past, a supply of short stocky plants is obtained, which at once 

 take possession of the soil when put out in their permanent quarters, 

 without any of the labour and worry incidental to transplanting 

 into nursery beds, so much recommended by some writers. 



STENOGASTEA MULTIFLORA. 



|E have selected this pretty subject as an example of a 

 genus of gesneraceous plants that amateurs have 

 hitherto too much neglected. Not only stenogastra, 

 but eucodonia, nagtelia, and other sections of the family 

 are neglected, whereas they should have a little extra 

 attention because of their beauty, their rapid development, and the 

 very little trouble they occasion. The first requisite certainly is a 

 moist stove, which, perhaps, comparatively few asiateurs possess. 

 But given this, the production of fine specimens of these handsome 



Harcb, 



