295 
SECT. XXXI. 
HOW TO PRODUCE SEEDS EARLY IN THE SEASON, AND 
IN MORE ABUNDANCE. 
First Spring advancing, with her flow’ry train. 
Next Summer’s hand that spreads the sylvan scene, 
Then Autumn with her yellow harvests crown’d. 
And, lastly, Winter leads the annual round. 
Smart. 
Those plants, which are required to yield a forward crop, as the peas 
and beans of our gardens, and those which our cold and short summers will 
not otherwise perfectly ripen, as wheat, should be sowed before the commence¬ 
ment of winter, either in the natural ground, as in the cultivation of wheat, 
or in situations sheltered from the north-east, as in the garden cultivation of 
peas and beans; or they may be sowed very thick in hot-houses, or under 
hot-bed frames, or under warm walls, and be transplanted, when they are 
one or two inches high, into the natural ground at due distances, when the 
weather is milder, and the plants are become hardier or less liable to be 
destroyed from their having longer acquired the habits of life. 
When young plants of any kind are transplanted, the ground should be 
recently dug, as their expeditious growth depends so much on the atmospheric 
air being buried in the pores or interstices of the earth by the production of 
carbonic and nitrous acids, and ammonia, and heat. 
The same advantage occurs by soaking seeds in water, or in the drainage 
from manure heaps, till they are ready to sprout, and then sowing them in 
a soil lately turned over; as their roots will then immediately put out by the 
newly generated heat, and newly produced carbonic acid in its fluid not its 
gaseous state. 
The transplanting of young roots, if they be set no deeper than before, 
does not, I suppose, multiply the number of stems, as occurs when wheat is 
transplanted so deep as to cover the second joint. When the roots of wheat 
are transplanted and divided, not only a great increase of the crop is produced, 
but I believe the seed is likewise ripened earlier, as is asserted by Mr. Bogle 
