468 The Gardener's New Director. 



and what does not open before they are fown, •will burfl 

 from the cone in the fummer time; and you fhould keep 

 their feeds in canifters., or leather bags, till next fowing 

 feafon, in a dry open place, where neither fun-lhine nor 

 fire heat can get at them. 



About the end of April prepare your ground for fow- 

 ing, by trenching it, and making it fine, taking out all 

 itones, and roots of weeds, or grafs. If this be done in 

 O^oher preceding, it will ftill be fo much the better ; and 

 if you lay it up in ridges after it is fo trenched, it will 

 be ftill of greater fervice. The ground fhould be of a 

 middling nature, neither too poor nor too rich, too 

 clayey, nor too fandy. Take off a pretty good cuffing 

 with the rake, and if the ground is very dry, and no 

 rain like to happen, water the beds from a garden pot, 

 with the rofe upon it; then fow your feeds pretty thick; 

 draw on the earth, and drefs up your beds with a very 

 ihort toothed rake, and in two or three days after, riddle 

 on an inch of the fame earth upon them. Some weeks 

 after you will fee them peeping through the ground, and 

 now is the precife time, when your greatefl care is re- 

 quired to preferve them ;' for at their firfl appearance 

 above ground, they bring up the hulk of the feed at their 

 tops, which whenever the birds perceive, they fly gree- 

 dily to attack them, and picking at the feed hufk, they 

 nip off the heads of the young plants, which utterly 

 deflroys them, I covered my beds therefore with clofe 

 wrought nets, fupported above the beds with hoops fo 

 high, as to be without the reach of the birds bill. This 

 does very well ; but there is ftill a better method, which 

 is to fet boys near the beds, from fun-rifing till fun-fet, 

 giving them piftols to fire, with powder only, which 

 will fo frighten the birds, that they will not venture, for 

 fome time at leaft, to come back again. If the weather 

 is very dry, you mufl water them frequently, which will 

 promote their growth exceedingly, and when weeds ap- 

 pear, you muft take them out carefully, becaufe in the 

 non-age of the plants, they are apt to come up with the 

 weeds. In the beginning of November riddle on a good 

 quantity of faw-duff, that has been dried fome time, or 

 for want of that, here or oat chaff, which when laid 

 upon the beds, will prevent the froft from throwing the 



young 



