A Compendium of Useful Information for the Practical Man/Agriculture

Planting Corn in Hills
There are two ways of placing, or ranging, the plants upon the ground; one, in rows, and the other, in hills. If you determine on hills, you ought to place them four feet apart.

Corn likes a free circulation of air, as well as all the sun that it can get.

Make a little place about an inch and a half deep, and about six inches in diameter, and there, taking from your waistcoat pocket five or six seeds, lay them down round the little place you have made; then, draw the earth over them, laying it upon the seeds to about an inch and a half deep, taking care that the earth be fine, and have no clods amongst it, and press the earth down upon the seeds with your foot or the back of your hoe.

If the ground, in spite of your exertions, be generally rough upon the surface and cloddy, you may readily find near the spot, fine earth enough to put upon the seeds; and, if you take care to do this, the general roughness of the ground is not of such very great consequence.

[http://books.google.com/books?pg=PT64&id=vaJbAAAAQAAJ&as A treatise on Cobbett's corn: containing instructions for propagating and ... By William Cobbett]

California Vegetables (January)
On warmer, drier valley lands in regions of light rainfall or on protected hillsides plantings of beets, cabbage, carrots, peas, turnips, lettuce, radishes and onions are usually wise. In colder regions lettuce and onions and radishes are hardy, and thrive if raised out of the wet, and cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, celery, tomato seed should go into seed beds to grow plants for later planting out. Asparagus, horse radish and rhubarb roots can be planted out in well-drained ground. It is the first great potato planting month for regions of light rainfall or on warm, well-drained slopes in regions of heavier rains. But on low valley lands in wet regions, January is often too stormy and cold for open-air work, as has just been said of December.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=58VBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA111 The California vegetables in garden and field: a manual of practice, with ... By Edward James Wickson]

California Vegetables (February)
February is the great planting month, for everything but the very tender plants, like beans, tomatoes, peppers, the squash family, etc., can now proceed with assurance of adequate heat and moisture. It is the month for the dilatory man who has missed his earliest opportunities to fill the ground with seed, and it is the time when plantings in small frosty and rainy valleys, which have been deferred because the ground was too cold and wet to start seeds and plants well, may be confidently made. Successions and rotations are in order, as the fall-planted vegetables are cleared away. Early small plantings of string-beans, melons and cucumbers will often carry through or can be easily replanted if the frost catches them. Potatoes are widely planted and will seldom be killed, though they may be cut back, except on low ground, which should be planted later. Chicory is sown, and sowing of sugar beets as a field crop for the factory, begins in February, on the warmer, drier lands.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=58VBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA111 The California vegetables in garden and field: a manual of practice, with ... By Edward James Wickson]

California Vegetables (November)
Peas, lettuce, radishes, cabbage, onions, beets, spinach, salsify, turnips. The coast valleys are now usually moist enough to carry all these hardy vegetables without irrigation, for late winter and early spring use. Asparagus roots are in shape for planting. Potatoes, beans, eggplant and tomatoes are planted in frostless places for early crop.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=58VBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA111 The California vegetables in garden and field: a manual of practice, with ... By Edward James Wickson]

California Vegetables (December)
The higher lands of the interior valley are usually ready for the rainfall garden. Beets, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, lettuce, onions, peas, radishes, spinach and turnips are hardy, though some roots grown at this time will in some places go to seed in the spring instead of enlarging. Potatoes are planted on slopes, well out of hard frosts. In northerly coast valleys the soil is often too cold and wet to make seed sowing wise. In such places the growth gets a poor start. This depends greatly, however, upon the character of the rainy season for that particular year.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=58VBAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA111 The California vegetables in garden and field: a manual of practice, with ... By Edward James Wickson]