IS78 



The Cornell Reading-Courses 



is fit to be set in the garden or the field. The plants should be as broad 

 as they are tall; spindling plants are not desirable. 



It is not difficult to grow tomato plants, if one has hotbeds or a green- 

 house. Suggestions about plant growing may be found in Reading- 

 Course for the Farm, Vol. Ill, No. 58, page ttt. The seed should be 

 sown six or eight weeks before the plants are needed in the field. Special 

 attention to watering and ventilation should be given; the amount will 

 depend on the amount of sunlight and the outside temperature. Tomato 

 plants require a high temperature for their best growth, but toward the 

 end of the eight weeks, the sash should be raised a few inches during the 

 daytime in order to harden the plants so that they will be in a condition 



Fig. 4. — Tomatoes growing at will, the general practice where grown for canning 



to withstand the outside temperature. This subject is discussed in fur- 

 ther detail in Reading-Course for the Fann, Vol. IV, No. 90. If the plants 

 are transplanted once or twice, they will have better-developed root- 

 systems than if they are left in their original positions. If they are to be 

 transplanted once, the seed shoiild be started nine or ten weeks before 

 the plants are needed in the field; if more than once, from ten days to two 

 weeks shovild be added for each transplanting. Growing tomato plants 

 in paper pots or veneer bands is one of the most successful methods. 

 The plants may be started in a greenhouse, a hotbed, a cold frame, or a 

 box in the house, and when they show the third leaf, they should be trans- 

 planted to four-inch paper pots or veneer bands. The plants shottld 

 then be given careful attention as to ventilation and watering and should 

 be properly hardened, or gradually brought under outdoor conditions. 



