SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
461 
your bed at this distance from the beets, then with a 
hoe make a furrow close to the line. This furrow 
should be two inches deep at least. Much deeper, you 
see, than the shallow furrows for the smaller seeds. 
Having made this furrow, measure two feet from it on 
each side of the bed and place your line at this point 
and make a furrow as before. Repeat the process for 
a third furrow. You should now have left a space of 
eighteen inches between your last furrow and the end 
of the bed. Into these three furrows place the beans, 
spacing them. 
Your seeds are now all in. At this juncture take 
your rake and cover the seeds, leaving the whole bed 
level and smooth. 
There is nothing more to be done just at present ex- 
cept to leave these seeds to the forces of nature, to the 
darkness and the moisture and the warmth of their 
earthy bed. They are put to bed not that they may 
sleep, but in order to wake them up. Soon the deli- 
cate shoots will begin to appear above the ground, and 
with them will also appear the shoots of many weeds 
whose seeds were in the soil. These weeds constitute a 
call to your next operation which is 
Cultivation 
Declare war on the weeds. Use your hand weeder 
between the rows of smaller vegetables and let not a 
weed escape. If they are in the rows so near to the 
seedlings that you cannot us the weeder without dan- 
ger to the delicate little plants that you are attending, 
then employ your fingers. 
For a time you may use the hoe or rake between the 
rows of beans, but even here near the paths themselves 
the weeder or hands should be preferred. 
There is one caution that old gardeners give which 
