April 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
49 
of tlie centre of the bed, dropped a few seeds at equal 
distances in the same cut, so as to have the plants 
from 9 to 10 inches apart across the beds. A man 
standing on the top of the bed covered the seed firmly 
with the hack of a hay-rake, and by his ordinary 
walking, while at work, further pressed the earth 
closely upon it. A man with an iron garden-rake, 
standing in the furrow, came last, picking off lightly 
the larger stones, and removing any obstructions to 
the coming up of the seed. Thus, four men open¬ 
ing drills, two girls sowing, one man covering the 
seed, and one man raking off, formed a band, in which 
all appeared to be equally occupied. Supposing wages 
to be lOd. per day for men,* and 5d. per day for 
women, and a plough and pair of horses 5s per day, 
the expense of this method of sowing is as follows:— 
s. d. 
Spreading manure, broadcast, with a shovel 10 
Ploughing into beds . 5 6 
Digging furrows, shovelling the earth over 
beds, and levelling ... ... ... ... 7 4 
Sowing and covering seeds . 3 8 
Being a total of about 17s. 4d. per English acre. 
One plough for 14 day, and 19 men in one day, pre¬ 
pared and trenched sufficient beds for one day’s 
sowing of five men and two girls. One thinning, 
and three weedings, during the summer, cost alto¬ 
gether from 30s. to 40s. per English acre, a few spots 
where the seed failed being filled up with the best 
of the plants removed in the thinning; but though 
parsnips appear to grow well after transplanting, so 
great a number of small fibres come in the place of 
the broken tap-root, that it is scarcely worth the 
trouble and expense of attending to. The crop grew 
well, and promised to be very abundant, until about 
the 1st of September, when the leaves began to show 
spots, like those on the potatoes, which rapidly in¬ 
creased, and about the middle of that month vegeta¬ 
tion most probably ceased. Instead of the 25 tons 
which I expected from the luxuriant appearance of 
the growth in August, I dug out finally only from 16 
to 18 tons, according to the goodness of the soil in 
different parts of the field. Seventeen pigs have been 
fed upon some of them throughout the winter, given 
perfectly raw, cut into pieces, and I never saw more 
health, more firmness of flesh, or more growth from 
any other description of food. Having kept an ac¬ 
count of the expense of sowing and cleaning this 
crop in drills (20 to 24 inches apart), I find it to be 
only about half that of beds (with 2lbs less seed per 
acre), therefore, where the soil is sufficiently deep to 
be moved to the depth of 18 or 20 inches (the tap¬ 
root will descend three feet in a permeable subsoil), the 
drill system would appear to be the most preferable. 
Peas. —The following was communicated lately to 
the Irish Farmer's Gazette, by Mr. James Drummond, 
gardener at Blair Drummond, near Stirling, cele¬ 
brated as a model of the taste of the late Lord Karnes, 
author of the “ Essay on Criticism.”—“ The varieties 
of the garden pea are very numerous and very hardy, 
not particularly adapted to forcing, but may be 
greatly accelerated by sowing in pots, in boxes, on 
pieces of turf, drain-tiles, &c., and placing them in a 
peach-liouse, glazed pit, or frame, and, when four or 
six inches high, planting them out in a warm border 
along the south side of a wall, hedge, or paling, and 
protecting them for some time with yew, spruce, or 
silver fir branches. 
“I have practised the following method for at 
least 18 years, and find it far preferable to sowing in 
* These wages in England are to be doubled to make tlie calculation 
correct. — Ed. C. G. 
pots, boxes, turves, or drain-tiles, &c. When I com¬ 
mence forcing the early peach-house here, which I 
do about the beginning of February, the border 
inside of the house, on each side of the pathway, is 
covered to the depth of three or four inches with 
cow-dung gathered from the park; over this is laid 
two inches of half decomposed tree-leaves, passed 
through a very wide sieve, raking level, and beating 
slightly with the back of a spade: upon this the peas 
are sprinkled as thick as they will lie together, so 
that one seed may not lie above another, and covered 
with riddled leaf-mould two inches thick. In the 
course of three weeks or so, the peas are fit for plant¬ 
ing out, being from four to six inches long. A border 
on the south aspect of a wall is chosen for the first 
planting; the ground being dunged, and dug deep 
and fine, the line is stretched in a diagonal across, 
or in a parallel direction along the border, according 
to taste or circumstance, and a deep perpendicular 
cut or furrow made along the line. The peas are 
then raised from the border of the peach-house, with 
a three-pronged hand-fork, in large turves, and carried 
in a basket, barrow, or sieve, to the prepared drill. 
They are then divided with the hand into small 
patches, drawing each patch longitudinally, then 
placing it in the cut furrow, in the manner of plant 
ing box-edgings, letting the roots hang as perpendi¬ 
cular as may be. By this operation very little of the 
dung and leaf-mould falls from the roots. The earth 
is then laid over and pressed firm to the roots, and 
another furrow made and drill planted in the same 
manner, nine inches from, and parallel to, the other, 
thus forming a double row. A little earth is drawn 
up about them with the draw-lioe, and staked pretty 
closely, and a few silver-fir twigs are stuck among 
the stakes to ward off sharp frosts; these are removed 
when the weather gets mild. 
I have been long in the practice of planting and 
sowing my peas in double rows, with the rows from 
20 to 30 feet apart, and cropping between with dwarf 
vegetables, such as cabbages, cauliflowers, carrots, 
leeks, onions, turnips, schorzonera, salsafy, beet, &c. 
I find, by experience, that the peas pod far better, 
and are not so apt to mildew when the rows are 
considerably detached; and they are excellent shelter 
for the dwarf vegetables between them; and, also, 
that transplanted peas do not grow so tall, and are 
more productive than those that are not transplanted. 
This may be attributed to their being sown among 
the leaf-mould, where a greater ramification of the 
roots takes place than in common mould; and, in 
addition to this, in the act of raising the plants for 
transplanting, each of the main or tap roots is 
broken off, and, the consequence is, after being 
transplanted, a further multiplicity of the rootlets 
ensue.* Peas sown on the 1st of February, and 
transplanted as described above, are fit for gathering 
about the same time as, or even sooner than, those 
of the same sort sown on the lltli of November pre¬ 
ceding, in the open air, along the bottom of a wall of 
south aspect. I gathered excellent race-horse peas 
on the 26th of May last, and some former years, 
which were sown on the first week of February pre¬ 
ceding, in the peach house, and transplanted as 
already described. This may be considered very 
early for this part of Scotland. 
* A correspondent (J. M.) says, “ Unless by those who have tried 
Mr. Drummond’s plan of having the drills at 30 feet distance, no idea 
can be formed of the advantage gained in every way. One very ma¬ 
terial one he does not mention—the room gained ; for they only take 
up the space of any low growing crop.” This is certainly true, if the 
rows are ranged one end to the north, and the other to the south, so 
as to throw but little shade on the crops on either side of them.— 
Ed. C. G. 
