20 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1894. 



wanted, and a cool upper soil around the vines. That upper soil 

 may be any kind of poor soil, only I would not forget the mulching. 

 A good average garden soil is safe, because its richness is likely to be 

 moderjite and uniform. If you plant right in such a soil without ex- 

 tra preparation, I would, after the vines get a good strong start, give 

 them a good occasional watering with liquid manure or wash-day suds, 

 or hoe in such fertilizers as will take hold at once, but don't begin to 

 do this till they can bear it. 



Now, since we are apt to have trouble with our Sweet Peas if we try 

 to manure the ground in spring, I make it a rule to put into my 

 ground whatever manure it needs in the fall. And the fall or winter 

 is the best time to put on wood ashes, which is one of the best plant 

 foods for Sweet Peas. We all know bone flour is excellent. And, if 

 we make trenches, tobacco stems are excellent to put into the bottom. 

 But in every case let us either depend on the garden soil for a suffi- 

 cient richness or else put our compost deep enough so the upper soil 

 can not burn or rot the vines above the seed. 



Now, I use the trenching method a good deal, and it is applicable 

 everywhere. When you dig a trench for Sweet Peas throw the best 

 soil on one side and the poorest bottom soil on the other. Make your 

 trench about 14 inches deep and wide enough for a double row. Put 

 as thoroughly decomposed manure as you can get into the bottom, 

 then the richest soil, and leave the poorest soil to fill in afterwards. 

 Your seed in every case should be planted five inches deep, and so 

 you will at first fill your trench in so as to leave about five inches of 

 it open. Plant your seed in such soil as the tenderest roots will bear, 

 counting on the feeding growing richer as the stronger roots go down. 



4. Now about covering your seed. There is no arbitrary rule. 

 Your judgment must control. My rule is this : I plant as near the 

 first of April as possible, and the ground is of course cold. A cov- 

 ering of an inch lets the sun's warmth get to the seed. But the 

 warmer the ground or the later you plant, the deeper you would cover. 

 It is absurd for people in a warmer latitude to follow the rule of shal- 

 low covering. And people sometimes tell me how they covered their 

 Sweet Peas four inches and how finely they did. That's all right. I 

 usually cover about an inch, and this year I shall not be in so much 

 of a hurry to fill in the remainder of the trench till my vines get 

 pretty stocky. I hope by hardening the young vines a little to the 

 weather to have very little loss this year. 



5. The time of planting. This depends on when your frost is out, 

 but the nearer to the first of April it is, the better. Why? Of 



