Essentials in Gardening 9 



for plants with long roots. In setting out young, 

 tender plants in the garden or in potting house 

 plants, the soil should be made as fine as it is 

 possible to have it. A good method to follow is to 

 procure a dirt sifter and sift the earth thoroughly. 

 If a ready-made sifter can be procured so much 

 the better, but even a homemade one will serve 

 the purpose admirably. It can easily be made by 

 simply nailing a piece of one sixteenth of an inch 

 wire mesh to a wooden frame and setting this 

 slantingly on a support, or by leaning it up against 

 a fence. The soil should be thrown, a shovelful 

 at a time, against the wire, when all the soft, fine 

 sand will go through and fall on the under side, 

 and the coarse particles which cannot go through 

 will fall in front of the sifter. The sifted sand will 

 be excellent. 



Soil should always be analyzed before it is 

 fertilized. An amateur cannot tell what the soil 

 requires until the plant has grown and either 

 flourished or suffered from the soil conditions. 

 A soil already rich in nitrogen should not have 

 nitrogenous food added to it or the plants will 

 die from overfeeding. Nitrates are among the 

 most commonly used fertilizers but most gardens 

 could stand more phosphate than they usually 

 get. Phosphate is the flower-producing fertilizer, 



