THE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 
29 
Better than any seed drill, however, is the capacity to use 
hands and eyes in sowing seeds so that there 
shall be a. good plant without waste or over- 
crowding, and it, is only by practice this 
capacity can be acquired. _ In preparing 
ground for seeds and in cleaning the surface 
between rows of young plants in the seed bed, a 
scratcher of the kind here figured will be 
found extremely useful.. It is obtained by 
bending the tines of a common 
manure drag or fork, and it is 
advisable to get a smith to pre- 
pare it, to ensure having the, 
tines sufficiently and uniformly 
bent. 
Seeds are sown in many ways. In any case we want for a 
seed bed a well-pulverized soil, dry and warm, and of necessity 
seed can be best sown during dry weather. The settled width 
of a seed bed is four feet, because by leaning over one can 
reach the middle of it easily. But seeds may be sown in 
single rows across the ground, and that is a good practice 
in a large garden where the work is done somewhat roughly. 
To draw a drill we put down the line and scratch to it with the 
corner of the hoe, then sprinkle the seed and draw the earth 
over it by using the edge of the hoe. The depth of the drill 
is regulated by the size of the seed, and the books give a rule 
that every seed should be buried at its own depth, which is 
nonsense. . The smallest kitchen garden seeds may be put in 
drills an inch deep, and they will come through as well as if 
covered with a mere dusting, and generally speaking make a 
better plant, because they will escape being eaten by birds and 
being roasted by sunshine, when just beginning to germinate. 
