SOWING OR CROPPING. 43 



getting four rough leaves, they must be carefully hand- weeded ; 

 and you must prepare other four-feet-wide beds, well dressed, 

 into which all the young seedlings are to be pricked — that is, 

 they are to be put in the new beds, four to six inches apart, 

 by taking them carefully from the seed-bed, without breaking 

 their hbres, and by making a hole large enough to take in 

 theii* roots ; the plants are to be held with the left hand at 

 the height they are to be kept, and with the dibble put the 

 earth to the roots. The whole of the plants from the seed- 

 bed may be thus disposed of, recollecting that each sort is to 

 be kept separate, the same as they were in the seed-bed, and 

 that they will require ten times the room in the store-bed 

 that they had in the seed-bed. Many plants left in the seed- 

 beds will be too small ; but if they are thinned out enough, 

 they will grow stronger there, as well as in the store-bed ; for 

 where they are pricked out a few inches apart, to grow larger, 

 is in fact the store-bed, from which they will be taken at the 

 proper season for planting out. During the first few weeks 

 they will require hand-weeding, for in their young state a few 

 rank weeds would faiiiy destroy them altogether ; after they 

 have had a month or six weeks' growth, they will in turn be 

 too strong to let the weeds grow. 



Thinning the Crops. — While, however, these crops are 

 getting ready for pricking out, the spinach and onions, carrots 

 and other matters have been growing fast, and will require 

 hoeing out and thinning ; for if they were left as thick as 

 they were sown, there would be no crop at all ; the plants 

 would destroy each other. If they have been sown in drills, 

 at proper distances, you have only to hoe away the plants in 

 the row till they are the same distance from each other one 

 way as they are the other ; and the distance, being already so 

 well defined between the rows, assists a young hand very 

 much in the regulation of his crop. In market-gardens and 

 tolerably large establisliments, and indeed most places where 

 there are regular gardeners, the broadcast is preferred, as the 

 experienced hand mil rather see a Uttle irregularity than hoe 

 up strong plants ; so that you A\ill always observe irregularities 

 in a broad piece. With onions, it is abnost universal to sow 

 broadcast ; and there are not many who allow more than four 

 inches between the plants, so that in heavy crops, on good 

 land, they touch each other in many places, and are very close 

 in all. The great art in sowing is, to distribute the seed 



