128 CALIFORNIA VEGETABLES 



very satisfactory. The application of it to various vegetables will 

 be given in the treatment of each. Where the seeds are to be 

 started by the furrow system on land that will draw water well 

 laterally, the seed can be sown in shallow trenches, leaving the 

 seeds barely covered. Then irrigate by turning water into shallow 

 irrigation trenches made some twelve or fifteen feet apart. Let 

 the water soak through and completely moisten the surface until 

 it has spread across all the seed trenches, and until the little clods 

 are broken down and dissolved. The seeds are thus well covered 

 and enabled to sprout and come up before the soil is dried out. 

 Subsequent cultivation levels the ground, giving the seedlings suf- 

 ficient depth of covering and new furrows are plowed for later 

 irrigations. This is only one of many ways by which seeds can be 

 started by irrigation. 



GROWTH FROM SEED UNDER COVER. 



This broad title is used to include about all that? is done in 

 California except under the sky cover. In the chapters on the dif- 

 ferent vegetables, which will follow, there will be mentioned special 

 propagating methods employed with each, but in this place a few 

 protecting and promoting arrangements will be described for the 

 benefit of beginners in garden work. 



Seed Boxes. Seed boxes are the simplest arrangement for 

 starting seedlings for subsequent planting out and in most amateur 

 gardening in this climate they will comprise about all that is neces- 

 sary in the way of construction, because, as will be seen later, it is 

 very easy to give them a little bottom heat if the grower desires, but 

 they can be largely used without any. The chief advantages of 

 starting seedlings in boxes instead of the open ground are the ease 

 with which the seed boxes can be carried under protection from cold, 

 beating rains or frosts, or protected from hot, drying winds or too 

 intense sun heat, and the convenience with which moisture condi- 

 tions can be regulated by covering and light sprinkling. 



There are no particular dimensions to be observed in making 

 seed boxes, except that they should not be too large to be easily 

 lifted and carried with their contents. The cases which enclose 

 two five-gallon cans of coal oil, sawn in two lengthwise so as to 

 make two wide, shallow boxes, serve an excellent purpose. It is 

 more convenient to have all the boxes of the same size than to use 



