As the heat of the summer increases, the crop will be inclined to bolt.  The starved plant will bolt first; the plant in rich moist soil, with plenty of room to spread, will be more leisurely about it, and will give time for the production of a succession crop to take its place.  The sowings from May to July should be small and numerous, and on rich moist land, to be aided, if needful, with water.  In many gardens there is a sufficient variety of vegetables after the middle of June to render it unnecessary to keep up the supplies of Spinach, and it is best to dispense with it, if possible, during July and August.

==Winter Spinach.==—­The sowing of Winter Spinach should commence in July, and be continued until the end of September, subject to the capabilities of the place.  In gardens near towns, where the land is at all heavy, it is generally useless to sow after August, as the autumnal fogs are likely to destroy a plant that is only just out of the seed-leaf.  But in favoured localities, with a warm soil and a soft air, seed may be sown up to the very end of the year with but little risk of loss.  The winter crops are sometimes sown broadcast, but drilling is to be preferred, and the rows may be twelve to fifteen inches apart.  Thin at first to three inches, and afterwards to six inches, and leave them at this distance, for Winter Spinach may be a little crowded with advantage, because the weather and the black bot will now and then remove a plant.  Should ground vermin claim attention, the best way to proceed will be to scratch shallow furrows very near the plants, taking care not to injure them.  This may be done with the hoe, but if time can be spared it will be better to do it with a short pointed stick, having at hand, as the work progresses, a vessel into which to throw the grubs as they come to light when the earth is disturbed.  Where small birds are in sufficient numbers, they will observe the disturbance of the earth, and diligently search for the grubs at hours when the cultivator is no longer on the search himself.

The July sowings will be useful in the autumn and throughout the winter, as the weather may determine; the later sowings will be useful in spring.  Plants may be drawn where they can be spared to make room for the remainder, but leaves only should be taken when the plant is large enough to supply them.  When symptoms of bolting become visible in the spring, cut the plants over at the collar, and at once prepare the ground for another crop.

==New Zealand Spinach== (=Tetragonia expansa=).—­Gardeners are only too well acquainted with the difficulty of maintaining an unbroken supply of true Spinach during the burning summer months.  But the weather which makes it almost impossible to produce a satisfactory crop of =Spinacia oleracea= brings New Zealand Spinach to perfection.  The latter is prized by some persons because it lacks the peculiar bitterness of the former.  The plant is rather tender, and therefore to obtain