slow and timid in thinning
the crop when the plants are crowding one another.

Parsley, like many other good things, will grow almost anywhere and
anyhow, but to make a handsome crop a deep, rich, moist soil is
required. It attains to fine quality on a well-tilled clay, but the
kindly loam that suits almost every vegetable is adapted to produce
perfect Parsley, and every good garden should show a handsome sample,
for beauty is the first required qualification. To keep the house fairly
well supplied sowings should be made in February, May, and July. The
first of these will be in gentle heat. When large enough prick out the
plants into boxes, or on to a mild hot-bed, and transfer to the open
ground at the end of April, allowing each plant a space of one foot each
way. In the open, it is best to sow in lines one foot apart, and thin
out first to three inches, and finally to six inches, the strongest of
the seedlings being put out one foot apart. By following this plan
sufficient supplies for a small household may be obtained from one
annual sowing made in April. It should not be overlooked that Parsley is
indispensable to exhibitors of vegetables, especially as a groundwork
for collections, and due allowance for such calls must be made in fixing
the number and extent of the sowings. When the plant pushes for seed it
becomes useless, and had best be got rid of; but by planting at various
times in different places a sufficiency may be expected to go through a
second season without bolting, after which it will be necessary to root
them out and consign them to the rubbish-heap. Parsley is often grown as
an edging, but it is only in large gardens that this can be done
advantageously, and then a very handsome edging is secured. In small
gardens it is best to sow on a bed in lines one foot apart, and thin out
first to three inches, and finally to six inches, the strongest of the
thinnings being planted a foot apart, to last over as proposed above.
When Parsley has stood some time it becomes coarse, but the young growth
may be renewed by cutting over; this operation being also useful to
defer the flowering, which is surely hastened by leaving the plants
alone. For the winter supply a late plantation made in a sheltered spot
will usually suffice, for the plant is very hardy; but it may be
expedient sometimes to put old frames over a piece worth keeping, or to
protect during hard weather with dry litter. A few plants lifted into
fiv