632 



LEGUMINACEOUS ESCULENTS. 



is better considerably to increase the distance, so as to allow abundance of 

 light and air to the peas, by which they will be much more productive, and 

 a crop of a more permanent kind than spinach, such as some of the cabbage 

 tribe, or roots or tubers, obtained between. A much larger crop, and a great 

 saving of ground, is by this means obtained. It is well known that the 

 outsides of double rows bear much more abundantly than the insides ; and if 

 only two rows in one place, and two more in another, fifteen or twenty feet 

 distant, were sown, there would be four outsides ; whereas, if they were all 

 sown together, there would be but two outsides. Two rows in one place 

 occupy three feet six inches in width, and two rows in another the same, 

 making together seven feet ; but if four rows were sown together, they would 

 take up eleven feet or twelve feet of ground. Here, therefore, is a saving of 

 ground of nearly one half. (G. ikf., vol. iv. p. 225.) In pea culture, there 

 is not a greater error than that of sowing the seeds too thick in the row. 

 We would recommend, in every case except in that of the crops sown to 

 stand the winter, to deposit the peas singly in the same manner as beans are 

 planted. We know some gardeners who practise this mode, and they have 

 always a larger produce, larger pods, and larger peas in them, than those 

 who sow thick, and do not thin out. Abercrombie, who is one of the safest 

 of guides in matters of this kind, recommends for the early frame, three peas 

 in the space of an inch ; dwarf marrowfat, two in an inch ; blue Prussian 

 and similar sorts, three in two inches ; for Knight's marrow and all similar 

 dwarf sorts, a full inch apart ; and for all the tall-growing sorts, an inch and 

 a half or two inches apart. For the early sorts, the seeds of which are small, 

 the drills may be an inch and a half deep ; and for the larger sorts, they 

 may be two inches deep. After covering the peas by putting back, with the 

 hoe, the earth that came out of the drill, it should be trodden down, if the 

 soil is in good condition as regards dryness ; but if from situation, or the 

 state of the weather, it should be otherwise, it is better only to chop the 

 soil with the teeth of the rake, holding the handle nearly upright. 



1388. The earliest crops. — In the neighbourhood of London, every 

 gardener is expected to gather^ peas in the first week in June, if not 

 before. To accomplish this, the early frame should be sown in a warm 

 border, or along the south side of an east and west ridge in the open garden, 

 in the first week of November. If the winter is mild the plants will appear 

 above ground in January, or early in February, when they must be slightly 

 earthed up, and during hard frosts protected by haulm, fern, litter or 

 dried branches with the leaves on. Early in May they will have shown 

 blossoms, and then every plant must be stopped at the first joint above the 

 blossom, so as not to have more than two pods on a plant. The whole 

 strength of the root being thus thrown into these pods, they will grow 

 rapidly. If there is any spare space close along the bottom of a south wall, 

 a row of peas may be planted there in December, protected by branches of 

 yew, or spruce fir, during severe frosts, and during every night till they 

 come into flower ; and instead of being sticked, the plants may be kept 

 close to the wall with twine or strands of matting, and stopped at the first 

 joint above the first flowers. Thus treated, the pods will be fit to gather a 

 fortnight before those in the open part of the warmest border ; but if the 

 wall is covered with the branches of fruit-trees to within a foot of the 

 ground, these will be materially injured by the shade of the peas. A second 

 sowing of the same variety on a warm border, or on the south side of a 



