MANNER OF SOWING. 185 



with a sufficient quantity of vegetable mould, surkhi-ash or some 

 compost. 



As regards covering, some see:ls, as for instance teak, need not 

 be covered at all, unless it be with a little chopped straw in order 

 to counteract excessive evaporation and help germination by its 

 decomposition. With these exceptions, all seeds after being sown 

 must be covered over. The depth of covering will depend chiefly 

 on the size of the seeds. Small seeds produce plants with a com- 

 paratively short hypocotyledonary stem and must not, therefore, 

 be sown so deep that the cotyledons cannot emerge from the soil 

 and stand up well above it. The larger the seed is, the more care- 

 fully must it, as a rule, be protected from drought. Large seeds 

 should therefore be sown deep, but not so deep as to prevent a 

 sufficient amount of air from reaching them. A safe rule with 

 large seeds is to give them a covering of more or less the same 

 thickness as their own cross dimension ; but it must not be for- 

 gotten that, for each kind of seed the depth of covering must vary 

 with the facility with which it germinates. 



In covering seeds the usual plan is to sprinkle some light spongy 

 manure, such as, for instance, vegetable mould or a mixture of 

 vegetable mould and farmyard manure, over the bed and then 

 rake it over, by which means the seeds not only get covered, but 

 the layer of soil containing the seeds is in every way rendered as 

 suitable as possible both for germination and subsequently for the 

 nutrition of the young plants. Large seeds require to be pressed 

 into the soil one by one ; but no amount of care can secure their 

 being covered over to a uniform depth, and hence they are not, as 

 a rule, adapted for broad-cast sowing. 



VALUE OF THE SYSTEM. Sowing the seed-beds by scattering 

 economizes both money and labour as far as the actual sowing is 

 concerned. But the seeds seldom germinate uniformly. If the 

 sowing has been done thickly, the plants are inevitably too crowd- 

 ed at a great many points, and must suffer, unless early thinned 

 out or transplanted into nur.-eiy lines ; if the sowing has been 

 done sparely, the soil is insufficiently covered in many places and 

 thus deteriorates or, at the best, there is considerable waste. In 

 either case the disadvantages are serious. In addition to these 

 drawbacks, weeding and the lifting up of the seedlings becomes a 

 troublesome matter. Moreover, as shown above, large seeds are 

 not always suited for this style of sowing. Nevertheless when 

 seed is plentiful or cheap, or the young plants are not to remain 

 long in the seed-bed, or the nature of the seed sown is such that 



