62 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
be unclerstoocl that these dates refer only to the 
latitude of New York, farther South operations 
may he begun earlier,—farther North later. So 
much for the time of sowing; I will now refer 
to suitable soil and the manner of sowing. 
The Choice of Soil., when choice can be made, 
is of great importance, the best being a light 
soil, composed of leaf mould, sand and loam; 
the next substitute for leaf mould being well 
decayed stable manure, or better j’'et, decayed 
refuse hops from the breweries, in short, any¬ 
thing of this nature that will tend to lighten 
the soil, the point to be avoided being a weight 
of soil, either from the nature or quantity of it. 
The nature of the soil is not of so much import¬ 
ance for the gei’minating of large vigorous 
seeds, as peas," beets, beans, corn, etc. But with 
the delicate, slow sprouting sorts, as celery, 
parsnip, egg plant or pepper, it is of much im¬ 
portance. Seeds of nearly every garden vege¬ 
table should be sown in rows in width, of course, 
according to the variety, and of depth propor¬ 
tioned to the size. Very little better informa¬ 
tion can be given in tliis matter than the old 
rule of covering the seed with about its thick¬ 
ness of soil, but this should always be followed 
up by having the soil pressed closely down. 
In our market gardens here, we invariably have 
the ground rolled after sowing, or in frames or 
hot-beds where the roller cannot be used, after 
sowing we pat the soil evenly down with a 
spade. This may not be of so much conse¬ 
quence in early spring, when the atmosphere is 
moist; but as the season advances, it is of 
great importance. I have seen many acres of 
carrots and parsnips lost for w.ant of this simple 
attention ; the covering of the seeds being loose, 
the heated air penetrates through, drying the 
seeds to shriveling, so that they never can vege¬ 
tate. Your farmer readers, no doubt, have had 
plenty of similar experiences with turnips, where 
they have been sown broadcast without rolling. 
Another advantage in rolling after seed sowing 
is, that it leaves the surfixce smooth and level, 
thereby lessening greatly the labor of hoeing. 
Sowing in Ilot-beds. —It would lengthen this 
paper too much to give extended directions for 
sowing seeds in hot-beds. I will briefly say, 
that after the hot-bed has been formed—say by 
the first week in March, let soil of tlie kind 
recommended be placed on it six inches deep, 
into w'hich plunge a thermometer three or four 
inches, and wlien the temperature recedes to 75° 
or 80°, you may then sow', giving air in mild 
w'eather as soon as the seeds begin to vegetate, 
covering up w'armly at night by mats, straw or 
hay. But many of the readers of the Agricul¬ 
turist never saw a hot-bed, and are perhaps 
never likely to have one; to such I would say 
that there is an excellent substitute on hand in 
most dw'ellings, in the Ifitclien or basement 
window's facing South or East, inside of which 
is a temperature usually not far from that re¬ 
quired for the vegetation of seeds, and where 
plants from seeds of the early vegetables, or 
tender plants for the flower border may be rais¬ 
ed nearly as well and with far less attention 
than in a hot-bed. Instead of hot-beds we use 
our green-houses for the purpose, using shallow 
boxes in which we sow the seed; these are 
made from the common soap box cut in three 
pieces, tiie top and bottom forming two, and 
the middle piece, bottomed, making the third; 
these form cheap, convenient boxes. Fill these 
nearly full wdth the soil recommended, and after 
sowing, press nicely down level, and make the 
surface soil moderately firm; keep moist, in a 
temperature in the window of from 60® to 70°, 
and your little trouble will soon be rewarded. 
In this way seeds should be sown thickly, 
and after they have made the first rough leaf, 
should be again planted out into the same kind 
of box, from one to four inches apart, according 
to the kind, and placed in the window to receive 
similar treatment as the seeds, but as the season 
advances, in mild days they should be set out 
of doors, care being taken that they are taken in 
at night, and that the soil in the boxes is never 
allowed to get dry. And here let me endorse 
in full the advice given to your readers in the 
last number against the use of pots in sowing 
seeds. I know it is usually the first thing the 
novice in gardening does if he gets any choice 
seed or favorite cutting; he has some how got 
the belief that there is some hidden virtue in a 
flower pot, and he accordingly sows his seed or 
plants his cutting therein, but in nine cases out 
of ten they are destroyed, or partially so, by the 
continued drying of the soil in the porous flow¬ 
er pot. If early in the season, let delicate seeds 
be sown in the kitchen or sitting room window, 
in the boxes as recommended, or if late, in the 
open border; but delicate seeds should never be 
sown in pots, as even in experienced hands 
they are much more troublesome and uncertain. 
Degeneration of Plants—Wild Oats. 
A remarkable instance of the alleged degenera¬ 
tion of a useful grain into a troublesome weed, 
has been brought to our notice by Solon Eobin- 
son. Esq., who placed in our hands a letter con¬ 
taining a specimen for identification from Mr. 
D. G. Pickett, Winnebago Co., Wis. The letter 
states that a fixrmer in Mr. P.’s neighborhood, 
threshed his oats in the field and burned the 
straw, but a rain extinguished the fire before 
the heap was all burned, and the partially con¬ 
sumed straw was spread upon the ground and 
plowed in. The oat crop was followed by one 
of spring wheat. In the spring, the plant in 
question made its first appearance on the ground 
where the straw was partially burned, and was 
plentifully mixed with the wheat. Since then it 
has spread from this field to the farms in the 
neighborhood, and proves a very annoying 
weed. So much for the history of its first ap¬ 
pearance, which we have condensed from a very 
detailed and cleaily written account. We re¬ 
cognized the plant as the Wild Oat, so celebrated 
in all accounts of the vegetation of California, 
where it takes almost entire possession of large 
tracts of country and affords a valuable spring 
pasturage. This oat, which is also found abun¬ 
dantly in the grain growing countries of Europe, 
was formerly considered a distinct species by 
botanists, and was called Arena fatua, while 
the cultivated oat was regarded as equally dis¬ 
tinct and called Arena sativa. Recently, Jiow- 
ever, European botanists of high authority have 
concluded that the cultivated oat was not a spe¬ 
cies, but only an improved variety of the Wild 
Oat, Arena fatua, as it had been found to de¬ 
generate into the wiid state. This Wild Oat 
has not before, to our know'ledge, been found 
east of the Rocky Mountains, and we must at¬ 
tribute its occurrence in the locality described 
by Mr. Picket, either to a degeneration of the 
loose oats in the straw, or to the seed having 
been introduced w’ith the seed wheat. The 
character of the seed of the Wild Oat is such, 
that we cannot concieve how it could have been 
sown in any considerable quantity rvith the 
wheat without attracting the attention of the 
sower. The grain of the wild oat is surrounded 
by a chaff, which is clothed with conspicuous 
brownish hairs, and bears upon its back a stout 
twisted awn or bristle. Figure 3 shows a 
spikeletof the natui'al size, and a grain enclosed 
in its hairy and bristle bearing chaff is given in 
fig. 1 of double size. We are disposed to ac¬ 
cept the account of its origin given above as the 
probable one, and it would be interesting to 
know how much the heat to which the grains 
were exposed in the partial burning of the straw 
had to do with the sudden reversion of a culti¬ 
vated variety to its wild state. We have heard 
of other instances in which seeds have been 
subjected to unusual heat, but not sufficient to 
destroy their vitality, and the product from 
these, when sown, was of a decidedly inferior 
character. Our friends, who believe in the trans¬ 
mutation of wheat into chess, will, no doubt, 
seize upon the above 
as corroborative of 
their views. They 
should bear in mind 
that the plant, which 
we admit may have 
changed, remains still 
an oat, and does not 
jump at once into a 
widely diffei-ent ge¬ 
nus. Indeed, it as¬ 
sumes no greater dif¬ 
ference than we are 
accustomed to pro¬ 
duce in plants by 
careful culture and se- 
lection. This case is only a sudden throwing off 
of the habits of civilization and reverting to the 
state of barbarism. As the occurrence of the 
wild oat is much to be regretted, care should be 
taken to prevent its spreading. Unfortunately, 
the foliage is not to be distinguished from that 
of the common oat, but in flower the panicle is 
usually more loose, and the character of the 
chaff above given will en.able it to be readily 
recognized. The plant being an annual one, if 
the already infested fields should be put into 
pasture it would no doubt soon disappear. 
--— — —-- 
Cheap Statuary. 
“ Friend Brown is very fond of gardens and 
rural adornment generally. He has pleasant 
grounds of about three acres in extent, more 
than half of which are devoted to ornamental 
purposes. Nothing can be finer than the grass 
of his lawns, which is kept short and smooth 
by the scythe and roller. • His summer house is 
a model of beauty, standing upon a knoll over¬ 
looking the surrounding country. His fondness 
for embellishment has led him to procure a 
sun-dial and several classical vases, which are 
distributed about the grounds. These vases are 
of cast-iron, painted in imitation of marble. 
“He had progressed thus far in his rural 
adornments when the rebellion broke out, and 
then the extremely high price of iron ornamen¬ 
tal work put a stop to his imiirovements, for 
his purse has narrow limits. He had begun to 
plan for the introduction of a few pieces of iron 
statuary into his grounds, but, alas! the cost. 
A figure of the goddess “Flora,” which, before 
the war, would have cost only $45, now costs 
$100. So, not to be wholly cheated of his en¬ 
joyment, he went to the city and engaged an 
Italian worker in plaster casts, to make him a 
few, about two thirds the size of life, of classical 
figures appropriate to the garden. They were 
statues of “ Spring,” “ Summer,” and “ Flora,” 
and, at a few feet off, they could not be dis¬ 
tinguished from marble. These were placed on 
