USE OF THE FEET IN SOWING AND PLANTING. 213 



lions of plants, which we never fail to sell mostly in our 

 immediate neighborhood, to the market gardeners, who 

 have, many of them, even better soil than we have for 

 raising these plants, and would succeed if they would only 

 do as we do, firm the seed after sowing, which is done 

 thus : 



After plowing, harrowing, and leveling the land 

 smoothly, lines are drawn by the " marker," which makes 

 furrows about two inches deep and a foot apart. After 

 the man who sows the seed follows another, who, with 

 the ball of the right foot, presses down his full weight 

 on every inch of soil in the drill where the seed has 

 been sown. The rows are then lightly leveled longi- 

 tudinally with the rake, a light roller is passed over them, 

 and the operation is done. 



By this method our crop has never once failed, and 

 what is true of Celery and Cabbage seed is nearly true of 

 all other seeds requiring to be sown during the late 

 spring or summer months. 



On July 2d of 1874, as an experiment, I sowed twelve 

 rows of Sweet Corn and twelve rows of Beets, treading in, 

 after sowing, every alternate row of each. In both cases, 

 those trod in came up in four days, while those unfirmed 

 remained twelve days before starting, and would not 

 then have germinated had not rain fallen, for the soil 

 was dry as dust when the seed were sown. 



The result was, that the seeds that had been trodden 

 in grew freely from the start, and matured their crops to 

 a marketable condition by fall ; while the rows unfirmed 

 did not mature, as they were not only eight days later in 

 germinating, but the plants were also, to some extent, 

 enfeebled by being partially dried in the loose, dry soil. 



This experiment was a most useful one, for it proved 

 that a Corn crop, sown in the vicinity of New York as 



