HOEING.
Dibber.
The hoe is of very great use, both to hoe up weeds and to form drills. We have spoken about its former use, and shall now say a word or two about the latter. In forming a drill for peas, beans, or other seed, one thing is above all things requisite, namely, that it should be straight. A drill resembling a dog's hinder leg, never looks well in a garden, and therefore the little gardener must have recourse to his line. This ought to be long enough to stretch quite across his ground, and when he wants to strike a drill, he should stretch it across from path to path, and, taking his hoe in his hand, cut or scrape a little furrow, about three or four inches deep, by the side of his line. In sowing peas and beans, the drills are generally a yard apart, and between them other crops are sometimes sown. Very often a crop of spring-spinach or of radishes is sown between lines of peas, and so on of other intermediate crops.
The line is very useful in all kinds of planting. In planting broad-beans, they are put into the ground by a dibber, which is a piece of wood with a pointed end and a handle. The holes are to be dibbed along the side of the line. The same tool is used in a similar way in planting potatoes, strawberries, cabbage-plants, and a variety of other roots, which require to be planted in straight and equidistant lines.