Page:Husbandman and Housewife 1820.djvu/140

 your soot, and all the coarse pound fine; sift it again, and then fill your leach or vat with soot—after this, pour in as much rain or soft water as it will hold. When your plants first come up is the time that insects commit their depredations—draw off the ley and while the dew is on in the morning, with a water pot gently sprinkle plants from morning to morning till weeding time. When you are sure one half of the strength of the soot is extracted in ley, you may venture to strew the soot lightly over the ground close to the vegetable, it will be the destroyer of the fly bug, slug, wire worm and all kinds of insects that destroy vegetation. But this is not all, it is a most valuable manure, for it will attract the dew, and will, in its rich moisture, adhere to the soot and earth, as it does to gypsum or plaister of Paris when used in the interior of our country—Soak your wheat and corn in this ley twenty four hours before they are planted or sown, and when coming up strew the leached soot gently over the ground, or apply it to the hills of corn, it will answer all the before described purposes, and will completely prevent your wheat from smutting.

It is also a defence from the birds, as the bitterness of the grain is so disgusting to their taste, they are obliged to have recourse to other methods of getting food.

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THE depth at which different seeds should be buried in the soil is various according to the difference of seeds and soils. It has been found by experiment that few seeds will come up at all, when buried deeper than nine inches; that some will rise very well from the depth of six inches, and that other seeds do not rise at all when they are more than two inches under the surface. And in general those seeds, the body