till

you have thus gone over the whole bed. In the absence of boards, tread in the seed with your feet, or strike on the beds with the back of your spade or shovel.

If it be necessary at any time to sow seed in dry weather, it is recommended to soak the seed in water, and to dry it with sulphur. This practice, with attentive watering, will cause the seed to vegetate speedily.

If it should be requisite to transplant any thing when the ground is dry, the transplanting should be always done as soon as the earth is fresh turned over, and the roots of the plants should be steeped in mud made of rich compost, before they are set out.

I have, in most cases, recommended seed to be sown in drills drawn from eight to twelve inches apart, in preference to sowing broad cast, because the weeds can be more easily destroyed by means of a small hoe; and which, properly used, greatly promotes the growth of young plants.

The following table may be useful to the gardener, in showing the number of plants, or trees, that may be raised on an acre of ground, when planted at any of the undermentioned distances.

The preceding table may serve as a guide to such as are not expert in arithmetic, in laying out a garden, as it shows

at one view many proportions of an acre of land, in squares of different dimensions. The last line, for instance, shows that if forty-eight trees be planted on an acre, each thirty feet apart, that there may be forty-eight beds of thirty feet square, or thirty beds of forty-eight feet square, formed from the same quantity of land. An allowance of about oneeighth must, however, be made from the above calculation for walks and paths.

The table may also serve to show the gardener how to dispose of any given quantity of manure, that may be allotted for an acre of ground. If, for instance, it requires three hundred and two trees to plant an acre when placed twelve feet from each other, it will require as many heaps of manure to cover the same quantity of ground, if dropped the same distance apart. It therefore follows, that if one hundred loads be allowed to the acre, each load must be divided into three heaps. If seventy-five loads only be allowed, every load must be divided into four heaps, and so on in proportion to the quantity allowed. But if the gardener should choose to drop his heaps five paces or fifteen feet apart, he may make such distribution of his loads as to have one hundred and ninety-three heaps on the acre of land; in which case, by dividing each load into four heaps, he will require only forty-eight loads to cover the acre, and he may decrease the quantity still more, by allowing greater distances from heap to heap, or by dividing his loads into smaller proportions, so as to accommodate himself to whatever quantity of manure he may allot to any given quantity of ground.

As it may not be generally known that some species of seeds are apt to lose their vegetative qualities much sooner than others, the following hints are subjoined as some rule for the gardener's government, provided the seeds are carefully preserved, and not exposed to excess of heat, air, or dampness :

Parsnip, Rhubarb, and other light scale-like seeds, cannot be safely trusted after they are a year old.

Beans and Peas of different species, Capsicum, Carrot,

Cress, Leek, Nasturtium, Okra, Onion, Salsify, Scorzonera, and small Herb seeds in general, may be kept two years.

Artichoke, Asparagus, Egg-plant, Endive, Fetticus, Lettuce, Mustard, Parsley, Skirret and Spinach seed, may with care be preserved three years.

Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Celery, Kale, Radish, and Turnip seed, will keep four years, if properly attended to. Beet, Cucumber, Gourd, Melon, Pumpkin and Squash, also Burnet, Chervil, and Sorrel Seed, have been known to grow freely when five and even seven years old; but it is not prudent to venture seed in the garden, of the soundness of which we are not certain.

In order to put such on their guard as may attempt to raise seed either for their own use or for the market, I would observe that great care is necessary, as it is an indubitable fact, that if seed of similar species be raised near each other, degeneracy will be the consequence; it is, therefore, difficult for any one man to raise all sorts of seed, good and true to their kind, in any one garden.

If roots of any kind become defective, they are unfit for seed, as the annexed fact will show. I once planted for seed some beautiful orange-coloured roots of Carrots, but as they had been previously grown with some of a lemon-colour, they produced seed of a mixed and spurious breed, and as this is not a solitary instance of degeneracy from the like cause, I have come to the conclusion, that as in the animal frame, so it is in the vegetable system-disorders very frequently lay dormant from one generation to another, and at length break out with all their vigour; I would therefore advise seed growers not to attempt to "bring a clean thing out of an unclean," but if they find a mixture of varieties amongst their seed roots, to reject the whole, or they will infallibly have spurious seed

In order to aid the novice in gardening, the following brief classification of such specs and varieties as comprise our catalogue of vegetable seeds is sub itted, and it is presumed that the connecting links, and explication of this table will not be altogether uninteresting to the experienced gardener and seedsman

In explication of the table, it may be necessary first to premise, that in the classification, as respects different seeds germinating, it is conceded that if some of those denomi nated medium were put upon an equal footing with some of the class denominated quick-growing, they would vegetate in about the same time. For instance, Peas would sprout as quick as Kidney Beans in equal temperature; but Peas, being hardy, are generally planted a month earlier in the season. If Beans were planted at the same time, they would rot for want of genial heat necessary to their germinating.

Many of the species denominated medium and tardy, require considerable moisture to produce vegetation; when not attainable, tardiness of growth, and sometimes total failure, are the consequence; judicious gardeners, however, generally obviate difficulties of this nature, by sowing such seeds at the most favourable seasons. Those who delay sowing Carrot, Celery, Leek, Parsley, Onion, Parsnip, Spinach, &c. until dry summer weather, render themselves liable to disappointment and loss thereby.

As some gardeners are apt to attribute all failures of seed to its defectiveness, I shall, in the hope of convincing such of their error, offer a few observations under each head of the table.

The first and second classes, denominated hardy and half hardy, are subjected to risk in unpropitious seasons, from unfitness of the soil to promote vegetation, rendered so by cold rains and variable weather. If sprouted seed survive a severe chill, it is the more susceptible of frost, to which it is frequently subjected early in the season. Some species of plants that in an advanced stage of growth will stand a hard winter, are often cut off by very slight frost while germinating, especially if exposed to heat of the sun after a frosty night, or while in a frozen state. Cabbage, Carrot, Celery, Turnip, and many other growing plants, which survive the ordinary winters of England, are here classed as half hardy, for the reasons above stated.

The third class, or most tender species, frequently perish