50 



PROPAGATION AND 



[chap. 



drilk ; for, unless they be sown in this way, all is uncertainty. 

 The distribution of the seed is unequal ; the covering is of unequal 

 depth ; and when the plants come up in company with the weeds, 

 the difficulty of ridding the ground of the latter, without destroy- 

 ing the former, is ver}' great indeed, and attended with ten times 

 the labour. Plants, in their earliest state, generally require to be 

 thinned ; which cannot be done ^nth regularity unless they stand 

 in rows ; and, as to every future operation, how easy is the labour 

 in the one case, and \\o\\ hard in the other ! It is of great advan- 

 tage to almost all plants to move the ground somewhat deep while 

 thev are growing ; but how is this to be done unless they stand in 

 rows ? If they be dispersed promiscuously over the ground, to 

 perforai this operation is next to impossible. 



91. The great obstacle to the following of a method so ob- 

 viouslv advantageous is the trouhle. To draw lines for peas and 

 beans is not deemed troublesome ; but, to do this for radishes, 

 onions, carrots, lettuces, beds of cabbages, and other small seeds, 

 is regarded as tedious. When vv'e consider the saving of trouhle 

 afterwards^ this trouble is really nothing, even if the drills were 

 drawn one at a time by a line or rule : bwt this need not to be the 

 case : for a very cheap and simple tool does the business with as 

 much quickness as sowing at random. 



92. Suppose there be a bed of Onions to be sown. I make my 

 drills in this way. I have what I call a Driller, which is a rane 

 six feet long in the head. This head is made of oak, 2 inches by 

 2| ; and has teeth in at eiglit inches asunder, each tooth being 

 about six inches long, and an inch in diameter at the head, and is 

 pointed a little at the end that meets the ground. This gives nine 

 teeth, there being four inches over at each end of the head. In 

 this head, there is a handle lixed of about six feet long. When 

 my ground is prepared, raked nice and smooth, and cleaned from 

 stones and clods, I begin at the left-hand end of the bed, and draw 

 across it nine rows at once. I then proceed, taking care to keep 

 the left-hand tooth of the driller in the right-hand drill that has 

 just been made; so that now I make but eight new drills, because 

 (for a guide) the left-hand tooth goes this time in the drill \vhich 

 was before made by the right-hand tooth. Thus, at every draw, I 

 make eight drills. And, in this way, a pretty long bed is formed 

 into nice straight drills in a very few minutes. The sowing, after 

 this, is done with truth, and the depth of the covering must be 



