BIDGE SOWING. 261 



r- 



from the next one made. But if no portion'of the excavated soil 

 is in a sufficiently good condition to be used at once (a frequent 

 contingency in stiff clays), the whole should be left outside for 

 some time in order to improve under free exposure to the atmos- 

 phere. It is superfluous to add that heavy continuous rain must 

 not be allowed to intervene between the excavation and the return 

 of the soil, as all the looser and better portions must get washed 

 away and be lost. AU clods at the bottom of the furrows or 

 trenches should be broken up with a mallet and the whole soil 

 nicely dressed. 



§ 3. Sowing the trenches or furrows. 

 The seeds may be sown with the hand or with the perambulator 

 drill and raked in ; but if they are large, they should be dibbled 

 in with the hand to the right depth. Where special protection 

 against frost or excessive insolation or dangerous winds is required, 

 the majority of the seeds should be sown up against that side of the 

 excavation, on which the seedlings will need to be protected. 



§ 4. Value and employment of the method. 

 The object of sowing in farrows or trenches is to secure for the 

 roots of the seedlings immunity against drought and wide fluctu- 

 ations of temperature. The low position of the seeds enables the 

 roots, as soon as germination has begun, to get into the deeper 

 layers of the soil, which are subject to smaller variations of tempera- 

 ture and at all times contain more moisture than the more superficial 

 layers, and may remain cool and moist even when these latter have 

 quite dried up and are intensely heated. Moreover the excavations 

 serve as receptacles for rain and snow water, which they retain for 

 a longer or shorter time, and this particularly during the season of 

 most active growth. Lastly, the position of the seedHngs, especi- 

 ally of their roots and root-coUum, in a hollow afibrds them very 

 effective protection against excessive insolation, frost, cold and hot 

 winds, and hail. The method may, therefore, succeed in dry and 

 hot or cold situations and in porous soils, where strips would at the 

 best yield only imcertain results. But it is a very expensive one 

 and should be employed only in exceptional cases, where less costly 

 methods are not likely to succeed. 



AKTICLE 7. 



KiDGE SOWING. 



This method is the very opposite of that just described, the seed 

 being sown above the natural surface of the ground in soil collect- 

 ed into ridges. 



