No. 244. j 307 



(liately changes to eight rows; these rows on our Indian corn are 

 always even, ne\er known to be o('d in number. 



Mr. Meigs said that perhaps some of his own experience and prac- 

 tice in the garden might be useful at this season.' — Some practical 

 operations suggested by long experience of the want, he had carried 

 on for years, and he said he had found the absolute necessity of ta- 

 king all manner of care for the first three or four weeks of the exist- 

 ence of plants in the planting and in the transplanting of several of 

 our valuable plants. All the drill plants, especially onions, he had 

 iound methods of planting and weeding, which he believed to be of 

 his own invention. After preparing the bed, making it very light, 

 one foot deep, and well pulverized, he made indentations with the 

 edge of a board, about half an inch deep, sowed the seeds in these 

 little drills and then covered the seed about a quarter of an inch deep 

 with Rockaway white sand, which has not a particle of clay in it; 

 the effect of this was to enable the young onion, which comes up with 

 its stalk doubled, to free itself from its knuckled condition easily and 

 so go on to grow. He had observed how many suffered in common 

 soil by being held by the tenacity of the clay in the soil, and so losing 

 their proper constitution. The next point was weeding which he 

 conducted thus: He used his forefinger to push down its whole length, 

 all the weeds within two inches on each side of the onions, (and 

 several other drill crops,) and also to push down those onions which 

 he wished to have out of the way. The advantage in this was, not 

 disturbing the young plants by pulling up either the weeds or super- 

 'fluous onions in their neighborhood, a care not to be slighted, for in 

 the infancy is decided the future idant. After having thus weeded 

 the drills then he used a. sharp hoe, (sharp enough to cut weeds so that 

 they might not grow again,) to clear out the spaces between 

 the drills. This method rendered it much easier to have a 

 clear crop of onions, at the rate of three or four hundred bushels an 

 acre, and of decidedly superior growth. He had followed the prac- 

 tice of old gardeners of shielding transplanted vegetables from the 

 sun by means of pols, caps and other shelter, putting on some hun- 

 dreds of them every morning for three weeks and taking them off at 

 night. This tedious operation he saved by the following practice: 

 When the nursling plants were ready he prepared the ground for their 

 new station, used an iron crow bar to make the holes where they were 

 to stand, he had long used a pointed stick, kneeling to the work, but 

 found that standing erect, with the crow bar let fall, the hole a loot 

 or more in depth was made with half the labor of the old plan, and 

 swayina: the bai enlarged the hole to some three inches diameter: 



