48 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



those in the open air, and therefore require constant watching ; 

 nor must young seedlings be allowed to want water at any 

 time, because they soon feel it and flag, and if they flag too 

 long they do not recover. It is, too, with the exception of 

 slight annuals, almost invariably the case, that as soon as we 

 can handle them, they derive advantage from removing from 

 the seedling-pot or bed^ and being pricked out into fresh soil, 

 which of course must be appro23riate, even if only an inch 

 apart, but the distance must depend on the probable growth. 

 Choice of Seed. — As the sooner the seed is sown after it 

 is ripe, the more certain it is of germiuating, most people 

 choose the seed of the previous season; but there are many 

 kinds of seeds that will last some years, and be good, and 

 there are others that are considered all the better if some of 

 their powers are reduced by keeping. The cucumber and 

 melon are considered the better for keeping ; that is, they do 

 not grow so vigorously, but they bear sooner and better. All 

 the seeds which are imported should be sown immediately, 

 because we do not know how old they may be. Stove and 

 greenhouse plants, at least many of them, seed freely in the 

 keeping of a good gardener; and these should be sown as 

 soon as they are ripe, because they are more certam of coming 

 up, and, being in a climate that suits them, it matters but 

 little when they appear. They can be grown as well through 

 the winter, with proper care, as they would in summer. 

 Those who prefer the spring often find it more difficult to rear 

 the young plants through a hot summer, than they ever find 

 it to bring them through the winter, because they have no 

 business to suffer from cold, and it is bad management if they 

 suffer from damp. But if seeds arrive from abroad, at the 

 very worst period for sowing, they should nevertheless be 

 sown, because many are on arrival at the last stage of vitality, 

 and a very short time would deprive us of the chance of their 

 germinating at all. 



pLANTma 



There has been no little pains taken to teach the rising 

 generation how to plant, if we judge by the number and 

 extent of the works on the subject; but their number and 

 extent have alone perhaps deterred many from attempting to 

 learn by those means. We propose to reduce planting to a 

 very simple operation, governed by the most unerring prin- 



