April 24.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
53 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
ALLOTMENT FARMING FOR MAY. 
Cultural Matters. —Under this head may he classed the 
following: sowing, planting, hoeing, raking, rolling or tread¬ 
ing, watering, weeding, Ac. We will offer a little advice on 
each separately. 
Sowing. —This appears, at first sight, such an ordinary 
operation, that it could hardly afford room for a remark. 
Not so, however; to sow seeds evenly, and of a proper thick¬ 
ness, not only tends to economy of seed, hut economy of 
labour. There is an old maxim, “ sow thick, thin betimes, 
Ac.” Now this extreme doctrine ought to be received with 
caution, for we have known young crops require an excessive 
amount of labour in thinning alone. Take for instance the 
carrot, which, when young, is a delicate plant, and behold 
what a time it requires, if sown very thick, to single them 
! out, as it is termed, especially if there should be a plentiful 
; produce of weeds with them. Moreover, the plants become 
J blanched and tender in the stem, and we have known a crop 
I thus situated, singled out during a showery and growing day, 
I succeeded by intense sunshine, half-destroyed by the sudden 
; influence of sunlight on their stems; and, if not destroyed, 
i so paralysed as not to thrive again for some weeks. We 
say, therefore, always sow at the ordinary distance, unless 
the seed is known to he inferior, avoiding all extremes ; and 
as seeds, even from first-rate houses, will at times prove 
inferior, we should advise those who live near large towns, 
to divide their necessary amount of purchased seeds in two, 
purchasing one-half at one shop, and the other at another 
shop, and then mixing the two samples together. Thus, if 
one is inferior, the other may correct its deficiencies. In 
sowing onions we always mix the whole of our sorts together, 
and, of course, we never fail of a crop; they are easily 
sorted at harvest time, for the kinds do not always answer 
to the name on the bag or paper. 
Our seedsmen, in general, have so many superlatives, in 
these days, attached to their packets; the terms superb, splen¬ 
did, superior, Ac., they fling about at random ; but we much 
fear that the superlative term is a piece of waggery in many 
instances, and refers to the price ! We advise our allotment 
friends not to sow in wet weather, although they may be 
behind with their crop, they had better risk another week or 
so in most cases. Most seeds are the safer for rolling or 
treading in, but this must only be performed when the soil 
is dry and mellow; the philosopher of this seems to be, that 
it has a tendency to prevent heavy storms from closing up 
the pores of the soil, and is done on the same principle as a 
clever potting benchman presses his fresh and elastic soil 
around the plant, which soil is then not nearly so impervious 
to air as it would be if tumbled in loose and settled, as some of 
the dogmatical gentlemen of the old school used to recom¬ 
mend in our boyish days; which settling, performed with 
finely riddled soil, too often proved a settler indeed. We 
j were on the rail, a few weeks ago, on the North Stafford line, 
I the pottery branch, and at Stoke (we think) there is a large 
allotment piece, much subdivided, whereon were working 
! several persons, each one to his plot. One near the rail was 
1 sowing onions, apparently, and was in the act of riddling 
through a sort of flour riddle the fine dust to cover his seed. 
If this meet his eye, we beseech him to hang his riddle up 
and let it rest. 
Planting, —Or rather, shall we say, transplanting. It is 
good practice to get the ground perfectly ready, the drills 
drawn, and any other necessary point, during dry weather, 
so as to have everything ready in order to avoid much trans¬ 
planting when showery weather occurs. Never curl up the 
long roots in planting; if they cannot be got into the holes, 
it is far better to cut them oft’ to a convenient length. Let 
the planter be sure to fasten his plants well; many plants 
are half-withered during scorching weather through this bad 
planting, otherwise termed “ hanging.” 
Hoeing. —We fear it is too much the practice to use the 
Dutch hoe, which, although of great service on well prepared 
| light soils, is by no means so well adapted for our stifter 
soils; and, indeed, does no good in a cultural sense. What¬ 
ever ground is hoed should be raked as the hoer proceeds. 
It is lamentable to see a poor fellow hoeing away on foul 
soil for many hours, and going away fancying he has 
despatched the enemy, when lo! a growing shower or a 
thunder splash, and tliree-fourtlis of his weeds are imbedded 
again, as though transplanted. As a general maxim, we 
advise the cottager to dig in all he can; this is the best 
cure, and is, morever, a kind of summer fallowing. 
Raking. —We seldom or never rake ground after seed 
sowing, knowing it to be a mere convenience, and decidedly 
averse to sound cultural principles. By a little forecast, 
and a nice handling of the spade, seeds may be got in upon 
the most stubborn soils. Where the extent is not great, we 
would have the allotment man cover his chills of swedes, 
mangold, parsnips, carrots, Ac., by hand, using a little 
mellowed soil, with which some old vegetable matter or very | 
powdery manure was blended with a little soot or guano. - 
Drills thus covered, we press, when dry, by moving the foot 
up them. 
Weeds.— “ No quarter” should be the only aim with the 
allotment man; let him never dream them a trifling affair. 
But to be successful this way, lie must not simply act on the 
defensive; he must carry the war into the enemy’s camp. 
He must not merely prevent the grosser weeds smothering 
his rising crops, he must, as it were, anticipate them, getting 
to work at them the moment a resuscitation appears. Of all 
the weeds most plaguing amongst young seedlings, we think 
young seedling grass the worst. We have known them, 
where the common annual Poa had been suffered to seed in 
the previous year, so thick amongst beds of onions or carrots, 
as almost to induce the cultivator hopelessly to dig them in, 
crop and all. Let our readers, therefore, beware of seed, 
weeds. 
Manures. —Let no manures be left uncovered after the 
month of March, say we, whether on the land or in the 
midden. We do not expect every one to cover, daily, their 
little manure heap ; we merely point to what we conceive a 
great principle; for, after all, soil is the most simple and 
ready fixer of ammonia, if not the best. There is, at least, 
this merit in frequently coating dunghills with soil—the bulk 
is increased, and that, too, by a medium which is mecha¬ 
nically essential in breaking up and dividing the flakes of 
manure. Those who are “ well up ” in cultural matters 
know full well that manures require the intervention of soily 
materials, in order to facilitate the speedy extension of the 
fibres amongst growing crops. We come now to the con¬ 
sideration of the allotment crops separately. 
Swedes. —We observed last month that, for a succession 
or associative crop, the swede grower must not be ruled by 
any man’s time for sowing. He must sow with a view to 
have good stout plants ready the moment they are wanted. 
For sucli purposes the first or second week in May will, in 
general, be quite soon enough. 
Mangold. —No transplanting here, at least we will not 
recommend it; although we have known pretty good crops 
thus treated on rich soils. On light and rich lands we would 
not sow mangold until the beginning of May; but on harsher 
and poorer soils we would be a fortnight sooner. 
Carrots. —Those who have not sown their main crops of 
carrots must do so immediately. Those who have been in 
the Habit of sowing carrots in the end of March will feel 
alarmed at the laxity of our notions as to sowing; but our 
experience goes to show that late sown carrots are much less 
liable to the grub than early sown ones; and this is not a 
trifling consideration. However, the soil must be in a good 
tilth, and the seed introduced with proper care; the land, 
of course, in a clean state. 
Parsnips. —Up of course, or just at hand. Let the weeds 
be kept down, and “ single out ’’ betimes. 
Potatoes. —Those that will thrust their heads through 
the soil in the end of April will require a cap, or at least it 
is well to furnish them one, and this may be done cheaply ; 
we merely go over them twice, and with a rake or hoe draw as 
much of the loose soil over their heads as will keep them in 
“ durance vile” until about the twelfth of May, when, apcord- 
