60 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



weather permits they can be set in the open ground. While the 

 plants are in greenhouse or hotbed careful attention must be 

 given to watering and ventilation. They should be watered spar- 

 ingly and should be ventilated every warm, sunny day, and also 

 on cloudy days if the beds are warm enough. Too much water 

 and too close an atmosphere cause spindling plants, also they are 

 conditions which are favorable to the growth and spread of 

 diseases, and the plants so grown, being soft, are very liable to 

 disease. 



Before the plants are taken from hotbeds they should be 

 hardened by exposure to the outside air. The sash should be 

 left off both day and night, but can be put on in the case of a 

 very cold night. 



Seed for the late crop should be planted May first, either by 

 hand or with a garden drill, in soil which has been put in as fine 

 mechanical condition as possible with a rake or with a smoothing 

 harrow and plank drag. As soon as the young plants come up 

 they should be cultivated with a wheel hoe or other tool and 

 thereafter every ten days or two weeks. 



In June the plants should be dug and set. It is better done 

 by the twentieth, although some seasons later planting will do. 

 We prepare the ground as for a seed bed, then mark both ways 

 thirty or thirty-six inches by twenty-one for Holland or Danish 

 Ball Head. Then, if a wet time, we make holes at the intersec- 

 tions with a dibble or even with the hand and set the plants. 

 If it is a dry time or not likely to rain within a few hours, we can 

 set with a hand machine which waters as the plants are set. 

 Care must be taken to pack the dirt about the roots with the 

 feet as one moves along the row. Plants to be set this way 

 should be straight and not over large. If we set by hand we 

 must first make holes with the dibble, then pour a little water 

 in the holes, then set the plants quickly before the water all 

 disappears if possible. A man can well do the setting and two 

 boys the other work, including the digging of plants. If the 

 field is large, the best way is to use a two horse planter. This 

 requires a driver and one or two boys to drop plants into the 

 machine. This must be the cheapest way to set, and, while I 

 have never used a horse planter, I think, from observation, it is 

 the best way. Fields set this way seem more uniform than hand- 

 set fields. The secret of it is this. In setting with water, the 

 settling away of the water brings the roots and fine soil closely 

 together and makes the plants ready for a quick start. In hand 

 setting with water one does not get the conditions just right. 



