402 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



to the area of a small garden. Lettuce can grow a month or more- 

 in the seed-bed before the transfer ; beets sown in the same way can 

 be set out in the garden when the ground is warm, and will be two 

 or three weeks in advance of those planted from seed in the spring? 

 and the roots, if pains is taken in the work, will be of good form ; peas 

 can be transplanted into moist or well-watered soil and will grow 

 thriftily; beans do best if grown in pots or flats, as many seeds in a 

 place as would be planted in a garden, and, when well up, shifted dirt 

 and all into the outdoor hills about the 1st of June. By this method 

 we get cucumbers much earlier, and they can be grown to the third 

 leaf before they are set. All forms of cabbage, onions and celery 

 should be transplanted; and melons in this way can be had much 

 earlier. Parsnip, carrot, salsify and roots of that nature are not im- 

 proved by transplanting. 



Plants of any kind should be given a permanent home before they 

 are overgrown in the seed-bed. Too large plants are less likely to 

 make perfect vegetables than those set when at the proper size. Seed- 

 lings will only attain a certain point of growth in flats, and when this 

 period of stagnation is reached no more growth can be expected with- 

 out a change of soil or location. If the plants have good roots and are 

 set toward evening in freshly prepared soil they will live. A strong 

 wind is more destructive to young plants than the sun's rays, and 

 if the soil is well prepared and pressed lightly about the roots, most 

 plants will grow even in the sun without shelter. A bath in thin 

 mud is a good preparation for the roots of some plants when they must 

 be set in a dry time. Watering after or during the time of transplant- 

 ing is much practiced, but, unless the weather is very dry, the plant 

 will do as well without if properly set. Cabbages and like plants, if 

 lifted a day before they are to be set and left in a cellar, will make a 

 new growth of root, so as to gain rather than lose time by the day's 

 delay. — W. H. Bull, in Garden and Fruit. 



HOW TO GROW CELERY. 



Buy good new seed from some reliable seedsman. Select a very 

 rich level piece of ground for seed-bed — if prepared in the fall all the 

 better; it should be plowed or spaded twelve or fifteen inches deep 

 and made perfectly fine ; a top dressing of wood ashes one-half inch 

 deep and enough salt to whiten the surface of the bed, thoroughly 

 raked in with a garden rake before planting seed, will be found very 



