38 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



cannot control, must be rendered subservient to straight rows, 

 as far as we can place tliem, and the inequalities alone mark 

 Avhere the planting is to stop. 



Kitchen Gardening. — The advantage of marking the com- 

 partments is, that they may be dressed in different ways : 

 one may be dressed with one compost, another mth a different 

 one ; and the record of how they are dressed will enable us 

 to tell how each has answered its purpose for the several 

 crops. But we might go further than this ; we might change 

 the entire nature of the soil in one compartment for any 

 particular purpose, by removing some of its own soil and 

 substituting other. We might attempt to point out or indi- 

 cate where the compartments might be divided ; but this may 

 be always a matter of fancy. They ought not to be too large, 

 in proportion to the space occupied by the whole ; nor ought 

 they to be too numerous. They should approximate a little 

 to the nature of the crops intended to be produced. If a great 

 variety be required, the compartments may be numerous. 

 If, on the contrary, the crops are to be confined to a few, the 

 compartments need not be so small, nor so many in number. 

 But enough ought to be done in this way for the purpose of 

 recording what each compartment is done ^vith — the sowing 

 or cropping of them, the removal and character of the crop, 

 the following dressings, and successive operations, and results, 

 costs, produce, and such other particulars as may be worth 

 notice. The garden, so far as we have gxDne, may be said to 

 be drained, trenched, laid-out, the paths made, and divided 

 into compartments. 



Sowing. — The various modes of cropping the ground are, 

 sowing broadcast, which is spreading the seeds over the whole 

 surface thick enough to cover the ground properly, but not 

 so thick as to waste it ; sowing in driUs, Avhich is done by 

 hand ^yiih a hoe, or by machines, which make the drills, and 

 drop the seeds in the drills they make ; and so-\\Tng by dibble, 

 wliich is making holes the depth the seed ought to be buiied, 

 and dropping the seeds in the holes so made. There are many 

 advocates for all tnree modes, but for some particular crops 

 one may be preferred to the other occasionally. There are, 

 however, machines now for sowing broadcast, and also in drills 

 of any depth or distance ; though broadcast was doubtless so 

 called from the fact that men threw the seed abroad from a 

 basket before them, and, strewing it right and left, made a 



