SECRETARY'S REPORT. 201 



Having selected a suitable seed bed, which should be fine and 

 rich, prepare it well by ploughing, or digging and raking. 

 Sow the seed in drills about a foot apart, and roll or pat the 

 ground smoothly, so there shall be no lumps for insects to 

 secrete themselves under. The great care at this period will 

 be to have a bed rich enough to give the plants a good start, to 

 have moisture enough to induce an even and quick germina- 

 tion of the seed, and to ward off, if possible, the depredations 

 of the turnip fly. Their attacks are sometimes made before the 

 seed-leaves are fairly visible, and so rapid is their work that the 

 careless observer concludes that his seed has never sprouted. 

 There are various expedients resorted to for the purpose of 

 preventing this mischief, which will be considered more at 

 length in another place. Here it will be enough to say that 

 the writer succeeded the past season in saving his early turnips 

 and cabbages by applications of black pepper and flour sprinkled 

 in the drills while the dew was on, and just as soon as the 

 plants could be seen. The sowing of the seed, should be 

 made about the middle, or last of May. Another, made in the 

 first part of June, may be of service in resetting when the 

 first setting fails, as it sometimes does. 



Sowing in drills has these advantages over broadcast sowing — 

 that the beds are more easily kept clean, and applications to 

 ward off the fly are more conveniently made. Besides this, 

 there is a saving of seed in drill-sowing, and the operation of 

 thinning, which should never be omitted where the plants stand 

 thickly, is accomplished to much better advantage when they 

 stand in rows than when scattered irregularly over the bed. 

 This thinning should not be done until the plants are well out 

 of the way of the fly, and they should be left an inch or two 

 apart in order to insure a stocky growth, with a strong stem 

 and abundance of roots. The plants taken up may be set out 

 in another bed, and will be every way as good, but a little later 

 than the others. Fine plants may sometimes be obtained by 

 mixing a small portion of cabbage-seed with that of carrots or 

 beets, where these are sown. In this way, standing singly, 

 they have plenty of room, and being transplanted before the 

 carrots have attained much size, they do no injury to 'that crop. 

 Some cultivators prepare the whole field, and plant a few seeds 

 to each hill, tliinning to one plant when large enough to be 



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