44 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



equally all over a given space ; that is, whether the seed is 

 to be an inch apart or three inches apart, to have no more on 

 one spot than on another ; but there are many things that 

 operate against this. In the first place, some seed is so full 

 of dead, that scarcely one in twenty-five seeds will come up ; 

 in other cases, fifty per cent, may germinate ; and we once 

 gave a man some onion-seed of our own saving, and when he 

 sowed it he was puzzled at the result ; he had not sown it 

 thicker than usual with his former seed, but here they actually 

 choked one another. He had been used to have seed sent down 

 from London, which never came up too thick, and probably 

 not a fourth was alive ; but here every seed told, and it was 

 as tliick as small salading. Falling later into the season, we 

 have beet-root, a very principal crop, to look after, and it 

 may be sown in drills, six or eight inches apart, and be 

 dropped in, a seed or two every six or eight inches in the 

 row; or it may be dibbled in at those distances; or it may 

 be sown as thinly as possible broadcast, to be hoed as turnips 

 are, clearing away all but plants enough to stand eight inches 

 apart all over the bed. The clearing them of weeds at the 

 same time as they are thinned out, and keeping them so, are 

 matters of course ; and crops of all sorts want the same at- 

 tention. 



Transplanting. — By the time beans and peas are earthed 

 up, and the former staked, to keep them off the ground, the 

 plants which were pricked out in the store-beds are getting 

 large, and vacant ground may be filled with them ; the cab- 

 bages may be the first that are put out in rows, a foot apart, 

 and the rows eighteen inches from each other. Larger sorts 

 of cabbage may be still more distant ; but this is far enough 

 for all the moderate-sized ones, because as soon as they have 

 grown enough to be worth pulling, every other plant may be 

 removed, and then the distances of the plants will be eighteen 

 inches by two feet. The savoys, Brussels sprouts, pickling 

 cabbages, brocoli, kale, and other winter crops, may wait 

 somewhat later; and when planted out, advantage must be 

 taken of heavy showers, so as to plant them out when the 

 ground is moist. The planting out of these winter greens 

 may be done at many different times ; generally speaking, 

 they wait for the ground, and many fill it up as last as other 

 crops are got rid of. 



All the various kinds of crops so plantec' out must be 



