HOW, WH-EX AND WHERE TO SOW SEEDS. 103 



CHAPTER XIII. 

 HOW, WHEN AND WHERE TO SOW SEEDS. 



As seed sowing is the starting point of cropping, a 

 thorough, knowledge of the conditions necessary for the 

 germination of the different varieties will go far towards 

 putting the tyro in gardening well on the way to success. 

 The very general want of knowledge in this matter is too 

 often the cause of much undeserved censure upon the 

 seedsman, for in nine cases out of ten the failure is not 

 with the seeds, but results from the time or manner of 

 sowing. When the owner of a garden sends his order 

 for seeds to the seedsman, it is generally a complete list 

 of all he wants for the season. They are received, and 

 the interesting operation of sowing is begun : first in a 

 hot bed, if he has one, often as early as the first week in 

 February (which in the latitude of New York is a month 

 too soon), and in go indiscriminately, at the same date 

 and under the same sash, his seeds of Cabbage, Cauli- 

 flower, Lettuce, and Egg Plant, Peppers and Tomatoes. 

 Yet even in the waning heat of this early hot-bed, where 

 a thermometer would possibly not indicate more than 

 fifty degrees, he finds in a week or so his Cabbage, Let- 

 tuce, and Cauliflower "coming through" nicely, but as 

 yet no Egg Plants, Peppers, or Tomatoes. He impatiently 

 waits another week, makes an examination, and discovers 

 that instead of his Tomatoes and Egg Plants beginning 

 to vegetate, they are commencing to rot. It is now plain 

 to him that he has been cheated ; he has been sold old 

 seed, and if he does nothing worse, he forever after looks 

 upon the seedsman he has patronized as a venal wretch, 

 destitute of principle and honesty. But he must have 



