420 VIRGINIA PLANT PATCH. 



up plants, is to make the bed about fifteen feet wide, and 

 place round, straight poles across it about eleven feet apart. 

 The poles should be three inches in diameter at the smallest 

 end. They cost nothing and save moving blocks around 

 with the weeding planks." 



If the plants are tardy of growth, or the season is back- 

 ward, wooden frames covered with cloth soaked in linseed 

 oil may be placed over the beds, which is far better than to 

 cover with pine boughs or glass even. The cloth soaked in 

 oil draws the rays ox the sun and keeps the earth dry and 

 warm, causing a rapid growth of the plants, which at this 

 stage need forcing in order to be forward enough for early 

 transplanting. A Virginia planter gives the following 

 description of making the 



PLANT PATCH. 



" Cut wood in September or October, so that it may season, 

 to burn patches (beds) in winter or spring. For ten acres, 

 or fifty thousand hills, burn and sow three patches each of 

 seventy-five square yards. Say one (if the land be in good 

 condition) the latter part of December, and if it be not in 

 condition then, burn one hundred and fifty square yards the 

 first good weather in January or February, and the other the 

 first of March. Select a place on some small constant run- 

 ning stream, not liable to overflow, with a moist, sandy soil ; 

 cut down all trees close to the ground ; get off all shrubbery, 

 leaves, etc. The patch will then be ready for wooding. 

 Commence by laying on skids ten or twelve feet long, four 

 in diameter, three and a half feet apart ; cover thickly with 

 brush, then put on wood regular all over, and thick enough 

 to burn dry an inch in depth. Commence your fires on 

 the side, and continue to move after it has burnt hard 

 enough. After it has burned, sweep off all coals, but not the 

 ashes : then it will be ready for hoeing up, which can be done 

 with good grub hoes ; hoe deep, but do not turn over the 

 soil ; get off all large and small roots ; chop over with hill 

 hoes, and rake until the earth is thoroughly pulverized ; then 

 put on twenty-five bushels of good, fine, stable manure, with- 

 out weed and grass seed, and twenty-five pounds of Peruvian 

 guano, which should be put on regularly, hoed and raked in. 



" For sowing, lay off beds four feet wide, so that the water 

 from rains may run or drain off. For every bed four feet 



