18 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
ground, and leave drills two inches deep. If one be made 
with the teeth eight inches apart, another twelve, and another 
fourteen, they will be useful in making drills for the various 
kinds of seed ; and drills thus made serve instead of strain- 
ing a line when transplanting Cabbage, Lettuce, Leek plants, 
&c. ; the line being stretched at one edge of the bed, and 
the drilling machine drawn straight by the line, makes five 
drills at once. If they are straight, they may be kept so, by 
keeping one drill open for the outside tooth to work in, until 
the ground be all drilled. 
Gardeners practice different methods of covering up seed; 
some do it with a hoe, others with a rake or harrow ; some 
draw a portion of the earth to the side of the bed, and after 
sowing the seed, return it regularly over the bed ; in some 
particular cases a sieve is used, in others a roller. Rolling 
or treading in seed is necessary in dry seasons, but it should 
never be done when the ground is wet. 
There is nothing that protects young crops of Turnips, 
Cabbage, and other small plants, from the depredations of the 
fly, so well as rolling ; for when the surface is rendered com- 
pletely smooth, these insects are deprived of the haiboui 
they would otherwise have under the clods and small lumps 
of earth. This method will be found more effectual than 
soaking the seed in any preparation, or dusting the plants 
with any composition whatever ; but as the roller must only 
be used previous to or at the time of sowing the seed, and 
not even then if the ground be wet, it is necessary that the 
gardener should have a hogshead always at hand in dry 
weather, containing infusions made of waste tobacco, lime, 
soot, cowdung, elder, burdock leaves, &c. A portion of these 
ingredients, or any other preparation that is pernicious or 
poisonous to insects, without injuring the plants, thrown into 
a hogshead kept filled up with water, if used moderately over 
beds of young plants in dry weather, would, in almost every 
case, insure a successful crop 
Saltpetre is pernicious to many species of insects ; it is 
