188G 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



497 



very Well, and then again it won't answer 

 very well. If the weather is dry and the 

 ground hard, and your seeds are simply cov- 

 ered with loose dirt, if it should not happen 

 to rain they may lie a montli without ger- 

 minating. What is to be done in such a 

 case? If it does not rain you can not make 

 it rain, and watering tlie whole field to make 

 the seeds germinate would be out of the 



"n.ANET .IK." SEED-DlilLL, NO. 3. 



question. Is tliere any tiling else to be doneV 

 Yes, there is sometliing else. After cover- 

 ing the seeds witli hjo.se dry earth, step your 

 whole weiglit on them, and the eaitli will be 

 so closely pressed to the seeds as to furnish 

 the requisite moisture to cause them to ger- 

 minate, when they would not do so other- 

 wise. After we had learned the art of mak- 

 ing celery-seeds germinate quickly and sure- 

 ly in tlie greenhouse, as we thought to per- 

 fection, we undertook to do it out in the 

 open air; and altliough we followed the 

 same plan they did not come up at all. We 

 could not tell what the trouble was until one 

 night a big black dog tramped across our 

 seed-bed. In the morning I felt like banish- 

 ing dogs, both big and little, had I the pow- 

 er. But in a few days every dog-track was 

 full of bright-green celery-plants, and none 

 elsewhere. The weight of the dog had com- 

 pacted the light i)eat that we used for cov- 

 ering, so as to make the seed germinate. 



You have, perhaps, noticed the same thing 

 many times when some gijeat awkward 

 heavy man tramped over your flower-bed. 

 Wherever he stepped, the things all grew, 

 but they wouldn't grow elsewhere. Peter 

 Henderson has written a most excellent ar- 

 ticle, entitled, "Gardening with the Feet." 

 Tlie idea is, that if you want seeds to ger- 

 minate quickly when it does not rain, just 

 tramp on the soil where they are planted. 

 Nothing seems to answer so v.-ell as the pres- 

 sure of the foot. A heavy roller, however, 

 is probably pretty nearly equivalent. In 

 putting out celery-plants in a dry time we 

 often make them grow by stepping cacli 

 side of each plant, as close to it as we can 

 get our feet, without injuring it. Xext we 

 step on the plant so as to let one foot come 

 before the plant and the other foot behind 

 it. The soil is pressed up so solidly and 

 compactly against the little roots that the 

 plant does not wilt ; whereas if the tramp- 

 ing had been omitted the plants would all 

 diy up and die. Kemember, however, that 

 th's tramping or compacting 

 the soil is needed only when 

 the ground is dry. If you set 

 out plants, or plant seeds, 

 just before or just after a 

 rain, don't tramp them; in 

 fact, it would have the oppo- 

 site effect, for it would make 

 the soil bake into so hard a 

 crust that the plant could 

 never get through it. The 

 easiest way of getting the 

 fine dirt over the seeds, un- 

 less one has a machine to be drawn by 

 liorses on purpose, is the Planet wheel-hoe, 

 arranged as shown below. 



THE "planet ,T1{." DOUBLE-WHEEL HOE EARTH- 

 ING UP. 



In the above illustration the macliine is 

 shown rigged for earthing up celery; but 

 the same arrangement, with the shovels set 

 a little closer together, covers up seeds beau- 



