194 
TIIE AMATEUR’S KITCHEN GARDEN. 
March, and sowing on it two or three seeds under the centre 
of each light. When well up remove the weakest and leave- 
one, or at least two plants to each light. Give air cautiously,, 
keep the heat down to 70 3 as the maximum, 60° being sufficient. 
The plants will grow rapidly and must have more and more- 
air, the lights being drawn off for an hour or two on sunny 
days; frames and lights remove altogether when the season 
is sufficiently advanced. Caution must be experienced in re- 
spect of exposing the plants fully, because they will be less 
hardy than those planted out on hillocks. They will supply 
nice fruits at the end of May, and continue bearing abun- 
dantly to the close of the season. The smaller and more 
delicate varieties should be selected for this culture, the best 
for the purpose being HibbercVs Prolific. 
The Culture in Beds is as simple as any other way and 
much to be recommended as a mode of preparing a piece of 
ground for cauliflowers or celery the next season, or to plant 
winter broccolis on before the marrows are cleared off. Mark 
out the beds five feet wide with two feet alleys between. Take 
out the earth one foot deep and lay it up in a ridge in the 
alleys ; now fill in with half-rotten dung, fat and firm, to a 
depth of one foot, and then chop over a good body of the same 
stuff from the manure heap with the earth laid up in the 
alleys, and as the mixing proceeds spread it over the beds for 
a surfacing. If this is done in the last week of May or the 
first week in June, as the weather may suggest, the plants may 
be put out at suitable distances along the centre of each bed, 
and the protection of empty flower pots at night will suffice, 
unless the weather should become unfavourable. This system, 
ensures for the plants a nice bottom heat, that lasts long 
enough to give them a good start, and the piece of ground so 
prepared will be in fine condition for the next crop. The 
smaller kinds of marrows, such as Iiibberd’s, the Custard, and 
Moores Vegetable Cream may be put at four feet apart, but 
the common large sorts will require five or six feet, and even 
at that, will be much crowded before the season is over. 
The Easiest Way to raise a crop of gourds or marrows may 
be described in very few words. It will be observed that in 
many gardens there is a glut of spinach, peas, beans, cauli- 
flowers, and other summer vegetables for about three months 
in the summer, and then comes a lull, and vegetable marrows 
are in request. It not seldom happens that scarlet runners 
