The principal counsel to be given here is to use great care in the selection of seeds because it is a bitter disappointment and a discouraging experience to find that after all your labor your seeds are worthless. It would be well to test a sample of your seeds to determine their germinating power. If you have a reliable friend from whom you can secure your seeds, you are fortunate, but if you must purchase at the dealer by all means patronize one of established reputation. For the first garden I should plant lettuce, radishes, beets and beans in one of the beds. The other bed may be devoted to flowers. Planting Your beds are now supposed to be all ready for the seeds. That is to say, they are shaped and graded and raked fine. The next thing to do is to lay your board across the bed, with one edge six inches from the edge of the bed. Then stand on the board and with a pointed stick make a shallow furrow on each side of the board close to the board. Here I should put the lettuce. It is desirable to have the seeds evenly and not too thickly distributed in the shallow furrows. One way of accomplishing this is by mixing your seeds with some very fine wood ashes in a bowl and spreading the mixed ashes and seeds along the furrows. A better way, I think, in the case of a small quantity of seeds would be to place each seed at a proper distance from the others. This distance will vary according to the size of the full grown heads of lettuce. The smaller varieties might stand six inches apart, while the largest ones would need to be twice that distance or more. Having planted your lettuce seeds, turn your board over carefully twice. That will bring it into position for two more rows of vegetables. Stand on the board again and proceed as before, making two shallow furrows with a pointed stick. Here I should put the radish seeds. These may be sown more thickly, for the reason that as soon as the radishes become large enough to eat they may be pulled out, leaving room for the rest of the radishes to develop. Having planted your radish seeds, repeat the preceding operations, making two furrows again, this time for beet seeds. These may also be sown thickly. The plants may be thinned out afterward. The small plants that are pulled out will make excellent greens. When the thinning is completed the remaining plants should stand from four to six inches apart, according to variety; some beets are much larger than others.