S2 RUTA BAGA CULTUIIE. Part L 



are sure to perish, or, at least, to lie long, and 

 until rain come, before they start. 



52. I remember a remarkable instance of this 

 in sowing some turnips to transplant at Botley. 

 The whole of a piece of grotind was sown broad- 

 cast. My gardener had been told to sow in beds, 

 that we might go in to weed the plants ; and, 

 having forgotten this 'till after sowing, he clapped 

 down his line, and divided the plot into beds by 

 treading very hard a little path at the distance of | 

 every four feet. The weather was very dry, and 

 the wind very keen. It continued so for three 

 weeks ; and, at the end of that time, we had scarcely 

 a turnip in the beds, where the ground had been 

 left raked over ; but, in the paths we had an abun- 

 dance, which grew to be very fine, and which, 

 when transplanted, made part of a field which bore 

 thirty-three tons to the acre, smd which, as a whole 

 yield, was the first field I ever saw in my life. 



63. I cannot help endeavouring to press this 

 fact upon the reader. Squeezing down the earth 

 makes it touch the seed in all its parts, and then it 

 will soon vegetate. It is for this reason, that bar- 

 ley and oat fields should be rolled, if the weather 

 be dry ; and, indeed, that all seeds should be press- 

 ed down, if the state of the earth will admit of it. 



54. This mode of sowing is neither tedious nor 

 expensive. Two men sowed the whole of my se- 

 ven acres in the three days, which, when we con- 

 sider the value of the crop, and the saving in the 

 after culture, is really not worth mentioning. 1 do 

 not think, that any sowing by drill is so good, and, 

 in the end, so cheap, as this. Drills miss very 

 often in the sowMlgs of such small seeds. Howe- 

 ver, the thing may be done by hand in a less pre- 

 cise manner. One man would have sown the se- 

 ven acres in a day, by just scattering the seeds a- 

 long on the top of the ridge, where they might have 

 been buried with a rake, and pressed do'.rn by a 



