THE PRACTICAL COUNTRY GENTLEMAN 



fanning mill to clean them. Store lilce chest- 

 nuts until spring. 



Start your seeds in a nursery. Make a bed 

 of sandy loam, four by twelve feet. Put on 

 two inches of black muck or other rich soil and 

 two pailfuls of fresh wood ashes and work this 

 thoroughly into the soil. Make a box around 

 the bed of boards eight inches wide, set on edge; 

 five inches should project above the bed, and 

 in this projecting part bore some holes for the 

 air to pass through. Rake the top of the bed 

 until the soil is very fine, and then put it through 

 a sieve. If the weather is dry, water the bed 

 thoroughly; sow the seed so that the grains will 

 lie about a quarter-inch apart. Then firm the 

 surface with a board or back of the spade and 

 cover with sufiicient sand to put the seed out 

 of sight. 



The next step is to stretch some wire cloth 

 with a half-inch mesh over a frame that will 

 just fit the box. Put this over the bed to keep 

 out the birds. Also provide yourself with a 

 lath screen made to fit the box, with the laths 

 the width of a lath apart. Put this on the bed 



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