deeply and thoroughly over; rake the surface
smooth and even; and draw the drills across the bed, fourteen inches
apart, and about an inch and a half in depth. Sow the seeds thickly
enough to secure a plant for every two or three inches, and cover to the
depth of the drills. Should the weather be warm and wet, the young
plants will appear in seven or eight days. When they are two inches in
height, they should be thinned to five or six inches apart; extracting
the weaker, and filling vacant spaces by transplanting. The surplus
plants will be found an excellent substitute for spinach, if cooked and
served in like manner. The afterculture consists simply in keeping the
plants free from weeds, and the earth in the spaces between the rows
loose and open by frequent hoeings.

Mr. Thompson states that "the drills for the smaller varieties should be
about sixteen inches apart, and the plants should be thinned out to nine
inches apart in the rows. The large sorts may have eighteen inches
between the rows, but still not more than nine inches from plant to
plant in the row. When large-sized roots are desired, the rows may be
eighteen inches or two feet apart, and the plants twelve or fifteen
inches distant from each other in the rows. But large roots are not the
best for the table; and it is better to have two medium-sized roots,
grown at nine inches apart, than one of perhaps double the size from
twice the space. As a square foot of ground should afford plenty of
nourishment to produce a root large enough for the table, the area for
each plant may, therefore, be limited to that extent. If the rows are
sixteen inches apart, and the plants thinned to nine inches in the row,
each plant will have a space equal to a square foot. Such, of course,
would also be the case if the rows were twelve inches apart, and the
plants the same distance from each other in the row. But it is
preferable to allow a greater space between the rows than between the
plants in the row: for, by this arrangement, the leaves have better
scope to grow to each side, and the plants so situated grow better than
those which have an equal but rather limited space in all directions;
whilst the ground can also be more easily stirred, and kept clean."

_Taking the Crop._--Roots, from the first sowings, will be ready for use
early in July; from which time, until October, the table may be supplied
directly from the garden. They should be drawn as fast as they attain a
s