AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 83 



TIME OF SOWING. 



The proper time for sowing varies not only with the various 

 kinds of seeds, but often also with the same kind, according to 

 the period at which the crop is expected to mature, or the use 

 for which it may be wanted. Vegetables intended for spring 

 or summer use, if hardy, should be sown in the fall or at the 

 very earliest opening of spring ; if tender, the seeds should be 

 sown and the plants prepared in hot beds, and be set out at the 

 time of the principal corn-planting, or a little earlier if the ob- 

 ject is deemed worth the risk. Unless the soil and location 

 of your garden is very favorable, do not plant or sow your full 

 crops, even of early vegetables, until the ground becomes warm- 

 ed and free ; let a border, at most, suffice for extra early ex- 

 periments. 



By this practice you will often excel in the quality and 

 yield of your crops, and sometimes in the earliness of their 

 products. " On time, but not ahead of time," is as good a rule 

 for the garden as for the rail-road. 



For all tender vegetables, the planting time of the main 

 corn-crop constitutes a fixed point at which, in all latitudes, it 

 will be found safe to sow or set. The time of leisure between 

 planting and first hoeing is the good time for farmers to make 

 garden, the ground being plowed or dug a month or so before. 



Those vegetable crops intended for winter feeding to cattle, 

 and those of the same kind intended for the table, should not 

 be sown at the same time, a large crop being a main object in 

 raising the former, and excellence of quality chiefly desirable 

 in the latter. 



All crops for winter use should be sown late enough to avoid 

 the summer heat upon the half-matured crop ; those intended 

 for feeding to cattle as early as possible consistently with this 

 indispensable rule ; while those for table use should be defer- 

 r^d.to as late a period as may in any way consist with the 

 probability of their maturing before winter. Through the cool 

 weather of autumn all vegetables that have not been checked 

 in consequence of too early sowing, or by some other cause, if 

 properly cultivated, grow with great rapidity, and furnish prod- 



