Brusseis Sprours 1451 
RAISING THE PLANTS 
The seed used at Orient is all locally grown, those who do not 
produce their own supply procuring it from their neighbors. The 
strain is very fine; its origin and characteristics are described 
later in the section on seed-growing. The seed bed is prepared 
on one edge of the field, the land it occupies being plowed and 
set with plants as soon as the rest of the field is finished. After 
the plot is made fine, and fertilized as for the crop, the seed is 
put in with a hand drill in rows eighteen to twenty-two inches 
apart, to make horse-cultivation possible. It is not wise to crowd 
the plants as much as with cauliflower, since any shedding of the 
lower leaves means loss in the early crop, as a sprout forms in each 
leaf-axil. With such spacing no hand-weeding is done; the weeds 
which grow in the rows are lifted with the plants and rejected as 
the latter are sorted. 
Allow four ounces of seed per acre, and five weeks from seed- 
ing to produce plants of the proper size for setting. The sowing 
for the early crop is made from May 10 to 15, bringing the 
setting about June 20; and for the late crop from June 15 to 
as late as July 10. Three sowings are frequently made by the 
same grower at intervals of two weeks. The plants at the time 
of setting should be six to eight inches high, and stocky. 
SETTING OUT THE PLANTS 
For the early crop plants are set out in the latter part of June or 
early July, and for the late from July 20 to August 15, most 
of them going out about the first of August. Planting by machine 
has been tried by a number of growers, but practically all have 
fallen back on planting by hand as more reliable and giving bet- 
ter results. The machine would succeed under the proper condi- 
tions, but these it seems impracticable to meet. That is, when 
sprouts follow early potatoes the ground is very dry at setting 
time, and needs more thorough wetting than the machine affords. 
Then, too, to succeed with a machine one needs a heavy, slow and 
steady team, a skillful driver, and two careful and accurate men 
to ride behind. 
The ground is marked in checks 3 x 21% feet, or less commonly 
3x 3, or 3.x 114 feet. The latter distance is too close. At the 
