The Ash. 



earth to crumble down. The alley, therefore, will become 

 narrower than fifteen inches 5 and, as to the beds, they can- 

 not be weeded if wider than three feet, without being tram- 

 pled on by feet, or being pressed by hands not much less 

 injurious than the feet. In short, nothing, in a case like 

 this, is so cheap as the ground. It ought not to be spared, 

 after you have been at the pains, and at the expense, of pre- 

 paring the seeds to sow in it. 



111. After all the ground is laid out into beds and alleys, 

 the beds ought to be broken fine with the spade, or with the 

 rake; stones, bones, chips, every hard and rough sub- 

 stance, ought to be taken off ; and if the ground have not 

 been broken very fine in the digging, it ought to be well 

 broken now, before the sowing begin. When this is well 

 done, the sowing may begin; and it is executed in the fol- 

 lowing manner : the mixture of seeds and sand is taken 

 to the ground. The sower, furnished with a bowl or a 

 basket that he can take in his arm, goes along the alleys, 

 and drops the mixture upon the beds in such a way as that 

 the seeds may lie one of them in every square inch, or there- 

 abouts. It is not necessary to be very nice : if there be 

 here and there too wide a vacancy, or if the seeds lie now 

 and then upon one another, it is of very little consequence; 

 for if sound and well kept, and of due age, they will every 

 one of them grow, and will be up and bespangle the ground 

 with beautiful seed leaves in the month of April, or early 

 in May. 



1 12. The seed lying thus scattered upon the beds, is next 

 to he covered, two inches thick, by taking the necessary quan- 

 tity of earth out of the alleys. The man who does the work, 

 throws up, as he goes along, earth sufficient to cover half 

 of each of the beds that adjoins the alley; he breaks the 



