Professor Bailey's comments on my remarks in the December number of The American Garden, page 455, somewhat surprise me. He says: "Some of Mr. Harris's comments are wide of the mark and demand modification in the interest of, a record of facts." But he does not say in what respect they should be modified. The point I wished to make was that no experiment has been made. Many of our agricultural and horticultural papers have quoted Professor Bailey's bulletin on this subject, and evidently considered what he calls a "record of facts" as an "experiment." No experiments were made. All that Professor Bailey did was to sow different seeds, and ascertain the quantity sowed. So far, so good. If others would do the same thing and give us a record of the facts, it would be found that some sowed more and some less (of certain seeds), but a thousand of such observations would not be worth as much as a dozen well planned and well tried experiments, such as Professor Bailey is capable of making.

Professor Bailey says that he sent circulars to 50 truck gardeners on Long Island, asking them how much seed they sowed on given areas of land. This is a good thing for an editor to do, but we are looking to our experiment stations for actual experiments, and not for the opinions and practices of farmers and gardeners.

Of the 50 gardeners, Professor Bailey tells us that "eight parties gave definite replies," and he tabulates the results and makes no comments. None are needed.

If the whole fifty had replied, the table would have been useful as a "record of facts." But those of us who have bad the most experience are looking to the experiment stations for definite information. We know the need of it, and we do not care about votes and resolutions unless we know who is voting. At a meeting of the N. Y.

Dairymen's Association, the late Professor L. B. Arnold offered in sober seriousness the following resolution:

"Resolved, that green corn fodder is an excellent food for cows"; and the resolution was solemnly passed, the voters evidently thinking that the cows after that must give lots of milk (when fed corn fodder). The fact is, it is easier to write and talk and pass resolutions than to make careful and repeated experiments. But this is not what we want.

In regard to peas I said, "many of us make the rows three inches wide, and if the peas stood three abreast they would stand 2½ inches apart in the row." My object was to show that Professor Bailey sows his peas decidedly thin. The printers made me say "rows" when I wrote "peas," and Professor Bailey seems to think I make rows three inches wide and drop rows abreast. Of course I do nothing of the kind. For a garden crop we make the rows from three to four feet apart, according to the variety. We set a line and make a row about three inches wide with a hoe, and drop the peas, one in the middle and one on each side, and about an inch apart in the row. This would take nearly three times as many peas to a given length of row as Professor Bailey sowed. Now whether Professor Bailey is right or whether I am right is precisely what we want to know.

It is one of the questions we want our experiment stations to answer.*

In the report issued from the "Office of the Experiment Station," at Washington, Professor At water says that Professor Bailey "gives practical directions regarding the quantity of seed required for a given length of drill. Careful records of the quantity of seed used for those vegetables ordinarily sown in drills show that the quantity required is usually much less than that recommended by seedsmen".

Now this is precisely what they do not "show." All they show is that in the case of peas, Professor Bailey sows peas in rows thinner than Peter Henderson in "Gardening for Profit" recommends, and far thinner than many others sow them. I have myself sown peas for nearly fifty years. I sow thicker than Professor Bailey; but what of it ? Professor Bailey may be right. One thing is certain, however; he will not convince an old gardener that he is wrong without better evidence than has yet been adduced.

From the first year The American Garden and its predecessors, the Gardeners' Monthly and the Horticulturist were published, until now, this subject has been discussed. In the first volume of the Horticulturist that I happened to lay my hands on, (1851) "Old Digger," who I think Mr. Lucher once told me was A. J. Downing himself, writing about peas, says: "And what is the common way ? somebody asks who has never planted a pea in his life. It is as simple as ruling a copy book. You have only to mark off the newly dug ground with i straight lines (2½ feet apart if you are planting early peas, or 3½ if late ones) open a drill about an inch deep with a hoe along these lines. Then drop the peas in this drill about an inch apart. Some persons plant only a single line of peas in the drill, others make the drill as broad as the blade of the hoe and scatter the peas an inch apart throughout the whole, and I recommend the last way as giving the largest crop".

When peas are planted three feet apart in the rows, one quart of peas to 100 feet of row is none too much. If the rows are two feet apart, of course they should not be dropped so thick in the row. In this section we grow many acres of peas for the canning establishments, and we drill them in with an ordinary grain drill, in rows seven to nine inches apart. In such a case a pea every two inches in the row would be thick enough, and even then we should have far more pea plants on a given area of land than any of us usually sow in the garden. My opinion is that, as a rule, we do not sow our peas thick enough when planted in garden rows three feet or more apart. Moreton Farm. Joseph Harris.

[*Note. - It is apparent that Mr. Harris and Professor Bailey are talking about very different things. Mr. Harris is speaking of broad rows in which the peas are dropped "one in the middle and one on each side, and about an inch apart in the row"; while Professor Bailey experimented with drills, the peas being dropped every four-fifths inch in a single series. The latter, therefore, sowed the peas thicker, so for as juxtaposition of peas is concerned, while Mr. Harris uses more seed to a given length of row. - Ed].