420 VIRGINIA PLANT. PATCH. 
up plants, is to make the bed about fifteen feet wide, and 
place round, straight poles across it about eleven feet apart. 
The poles should be three inches in diameter at the smallest 
end. They cost nothing and save moving blocks around 
with the weeding planks.” 
If the plants are tardy of growth, or the season is back- 
ward, wooden frames covered with cloth soaked in linseed 
oil may be placed over the beds, which is far better than to 
cover with pine boughs or glass even. The cloth soaked in 
oil draws the rays of the sun and keeps the earth dry and 
warm, causing a rapid growth of the plants, which at this 
stage need forcing in order to be forward enough for early 
transplanting. A Virginia planter gives the following 
description of making the . 
PLANT PATCH. 
“ Cut wood in September or October, so that it may season, 
to burn patches (beds) in winter or spring. For ten acres, 
or fifty thousand hills, burn and sow three patches each of 
seventy-five square yards. Say one (if the land be in good 
condition) the latter part of December, and if it be not in 
condition then, burn one hundred and fifty square yards the 
first good weather in January or February, and the other the 
first of March. Select a place on some small constant run- 
ning stream, not liable to overflow, with a moist, sandy soil ; 
cut down all trees close to the ground ; get off all shrubbery, 
leaves, etc. The patch will then be ready for wooding. 
Commence by laying on skids ten or twelve feet. long, four 
in diameter, three and a half feet apart; cover thickly with. 
brush, then put’on wood regular all over, and thick enough 
to burn dry an inch in depth. Commence your fires on 
the side, and continue to move after it has burnt hard 
enough. After it has burned, sweep off all coals, but not the 
ashes: then it will be ready for hoeing up, which can be done 
with good grub hoes; hoe deep, but do not turn over the 
soil; get off all large and. small roots; chop over with hill 
hoes, and rake until the earth is thoroughly pulverized ; then 
put on twenty-five bushels of good, fine, stable manure, with-. 
out weed and grass seed, and twenty-five pounds of Peruvian 
guano, which should be put on regularly, hoed and raked in. 
“For sowing, lay off beds four feet wide, so that the water 
from rains may run or drain off. For every bed four feet 
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