102 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



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economy therefore to evenly cultivate the whole area. Lay out the 

 plantings in straight rows for ease of cultivation, and either plant 

 full rows of each vegetable or continue the row with another kind 

 which requires the same distance. Proper distances for each vege- 

 table will be considered in subsequent chapters. It is convenient 

 to make the distances multiples of some unit. For instance two 

 feet between the rows is about the minimum distance for horse 

 cultivation. Some growers therefore plant at two, four, six, eight, 

 etc., feet distances: others start with three feet and proceed with 

 six, nine, twelve, etc. the latter for the largest running vines. 

 This makes rows of the small, upright growers a yard apart, which 

 is rather too great a distance ordinarily. 



It is often a great convenience to have permanent distance 

 stake's set close to the fences on the ends of the plot and placing 

 them the accepted unit apart. It is easy to regulate distances by 

 slipping the planting line over the two opposite stakes which give 

 the desired separation. If one has a good horse and a good eye, 

 he will, however, probably prefer to use a "marker" made with 

 thills and plow handles properly fastened to a cross-bar eight or 

 ten feet long and fitted with wooden teeth such distance apart as he 

 adopts as his unit of distance between the rows. Starting then 

 with a straight guide-line on the surface on one side, three or four 

 parallel lines can be clearly marked at one driving over. Follow- 

 ing these marks with the garden drill, or with the hoe planting, very 

 straight lines of seeding can be done in a fraction of the time needed 

 to work with a line. But whether line or marker be used, it is 

 desirable to rotate the plants year by year so that the narrow and 

 wide row plantings shall change places on the plot, else one might 

 be so supernaturally accurate that the rows would come everlast- 

 ingly on the same lines, which would not be desirable even if the soil 

 were somewhat displaced laterally by cultivation. 



It is a great convenience in arranging for due succession in the 

 garden (which will be farther considered in the chapter on plant- 

 ing) to give adjacent rows to vegetables which mature at about the 

 same time. By this arrangement, say, half or a quarter of the 

 garden lengthwise can be cleaned up at the same time and the whole 

 section be at once replanted or plowed up for later planting or irri- 

 gating as may be desirable. Of course if early plantings for win- 

 ter use are made in the same plot with plantings which will go into 

 the summer, each should be in its own quarter of the garden. 



