300 THE VEGETABLE CULTIVATOR. 



it is hardly possible to manure the ground too 

 highly. Always select an open situation, not too 

 near low spreading trees, &c. ; as in close and shady 

 places it is mostly drawn up weak, and soon runs 

 to seed, without attaining perfection. 



After the ground has been properly dug, the 

 seed may either be sown broad-cast, in four-feet 

 beds, and raked in, or in shallow drills a foot 

 asunder. If by broad- cast, and more than one bed 

 is required, such should have one- foot alleys : sow 

 all over the surface moderately thin, and if the 

 land is light and dry, it can be trodden down evenly, 

 and afterwards raked over, and, if dry weather, 

 smoothed off with the back of a spade, the better 

 to detain the moisture. If in drills (which is ge- 

 nerally practised with considerable advantage), they 

 should be drawn with a proper drill hoe, two inches 

 deep, and about a foot apart : along each drill 

 scatter the seed thinly and regularly, and then cover 

 it over with earth, which beat down with the head 

 of a rake, to prevent what little moisture it con- 

 tains from evaporating too rapidly. 



The drill mode is often very proper and con- 

 venient in sowing between other crops, as between 

 wide rows of beans, peas, cabbages, &c., as it 

 admits of hoeing up the weeds between the rows 

 with facility ; and if sown thin and the plants are 

 thinned out properly, they grow large and fine, and 

 the produce is very conveniently gathered. 



The seeds generally come up in a fortnight, or, 

 perhaps, if sown very early in spring, it may be 

 three weeks or a month before they appear. 



In respect to the after-culture of the crops, when 



