have made their garden stakes one foot in length. They
will serve as a good rule in furrow making. On their hoe handles Jack
and Elizabeth have marked two feet off into inches. This is another
scheme for measuring. George has a pole four feet long which he uses.
This has inches marked on one foot of its length. Katharine has a
seventy-five foot tape measure. And Leston and Helena have made this
tool I have here in my hand. It looks like a wooden toothed rake with
its teeth eight inches apart. This dragged over the surface of a nice,
fine garden bed marks off furrows. It makes the most regular furrows you
ever saw because it cannot help itself. Miriam used a board last summer.
She laid this across her seed bed, kneeling on it, then she drew a
dibber along the board's straight edge, pressing firmly into the soil
with the dibber. This also made a good straight furrow.

"Peter and Philip always use a line and two stout garden stakes. Their
hoes do the rest.

"We usually think of furrows, or drills, as they really should be called
when little soil is removed, as being about a half inch or even less in
width. Sometimes certain seed, beans and peas, for example, are placed
in double rows in a wide drill.

"I think you all understand hill making. Then you remember how we
planted certain seeds broadcast, as grass and poppy seeds. Remember that
seeds thus sown need only a dusting of soil over them.

"But in general, drill sowing for both vegetables and flower seeds is
the most satisfactory method.

"Most boys and girls sow seeds too thickly. The seedlings as they come
up are too crowded for proper amounts of sunlight, air and food. You
have seen lettuce seedlings crowded together growing small and weak.
Why? Lack of light and air, lack of moisture and food are the reasons
for this. Thin out pretty severely. Wait, of course, until the seedlings
are an inch or more high. Then look over the little plants and gently
take out the weakest and smallest specimens. Press the soil firmly about
those which remain. If the first planting has been very thick have two
times of thinning. It is a bit easier on those seedlings remaining if
too many comrades do not go at once.

[Illustration: Jack's Rake Handle as a Measuring Stick]

[Illustration: Albert Sowing Large Seeds Singly

Photographs by Edward Mahoney]

"Of course, some of these seedlings may be transplanted. They should be
about two inches above ground for this purpose. Lettuce