586 



GLEANINGS IN BEE (3ULTURE. 



Aug. 



rake until you begin to strike the roots is 

 another point that I can't get boys and raen 

 to do. They will start out all right; but 

 when I come back to examine the plants, 

 and try to put my fingers down among the 

 roots, I find the dirt so hard that it is very 

 plain the rake-teeth never went down there 

 at all. This is the great secret of making 

 things grow, however. If the ground is 

 loose and porous, the air gets down around 

 the roots, and the soil keeps very much 

 damper than if it were packed hard and 

 stubborn. When rain comes, your dust 



planted plants are to-day great stout stalks 

 of celery that would do very well to put on 

 the table, while thosf taken from the seed- 

 bed are spindling and feeble in comparison. 

 Now, when you get your transplant'-^'d 

 plants with a great strong mass of fibrous 

 roots to each plant, do not, under any cir- 

 cumstances, pull them up so as to tear the 

 roots off, nor let any man or boy do it. If 

 you don't watch them carefully they surely 

 will ; and it does not seem to make much 

 difference how many times they have be-^ni 

 cautioned and talked to. Before trying to 



blanket of several inches in thickness soaks i remove any plant, soak the ground thor- 



up the water like a sponge, and holds it, 

 even duriug a pretty long drought ; while a 

 soil that had not been worked up into dust 

 would neither catch nor hold hardly any 

 of the water that fell. 



TKANSl'LANTINO IN JULY AND AUGUST. 



In spite of all that has been said on this 

 subject, it seems there is no end to the time 

 and money wasted in this simple operation. 

 During a rainy time, when it rains every aft- 

 ernoon, or almost every night, almost any 

 kind of plant will grow if a little dirt is over 

 the roots in any sort of shape; but where 

 you want to put out cabbage and celery 

 plants in July or August, and during a time 

 of drought, there must be different manage- 

 ment. In the first place, you want trans- 

 planted plants. A cabbage-plant or celery- 



oughly with water, no matter if it has been 

 raining within an hour. 8oak the ground 

 until it is so soft that every thing is in a 

 mush. If possible, soak the ground two or 

 three hours before you wish to remove the 

 plants, then soak it again just as you take 

 it up. 



Few people have any comprehension of the 

 amount of water that a small spot of ground 

 will take up ; and if you want to get your 

 plants up nicely you must pour on water at 

 intervals until the plants will come up with- 

 out the snapping or breaking of a single 

 fibrous root. As the plants are pulled up, lay 

 tliem down gently in a market basket stood 

 on end. When you carry tiiem to the field 

 don't carry the basket by the handle, but 

 take hold of the upper end of it. If a boy 



plant grown in the seed-bed, with the soil | drops plants, don't let him pick them up l)y 



ever so good, and with the plants scattered 

 over plenty of ground, is pretty sure to send 

 down a single tap-root, with a few roots run- 

 ning out each way. When they are pulled 

 up, the little roots snap off', and the tap- 

 root breaks off", a great portion of it. By 

 digging them out with a spadiug-fork you 

 can get more of the roots ; but even then 

 the plant is not to be compared to one that 

 has been transplanted according to the di- 

 rections in the fore part of these writings. 

 About six weeks ago we had some very 

 large, fine-looking celery-plants standing in 

 the seed-bed. They were almost too large 

 to transplant, so I decided to put them into 

 the rows in the field, just as they were. We 

 had plenty of rain ; but the greater part of 

 them died. At the same time, we put in 

 one or two rows of transplanted plants. 

 Tliese had great bunches of roots, something 

 like a small liriish-heap ; and when the plants 

 were pulled up, the ground being properly 

 wetted beforehand, this mass of roots 

 brought along with it a great lot of the rich 

 soil of the plant-bed. Well, these trans- 



the tops and drop tliem into the furrow. In- 

 sist that he liandle them by the roots, and 

 keep every particle of wet dirt adhering to 

 them all he possibly can. Don't be satisfied 

 by once telling him, for he will soon get 

 tired, and begin to pull them out of the bas- 

 ket by the tops, letting the dirt slip off or 

 rattle off. Keep your eye on your boy and 

 on your plants. Set them in place in the 

 furrow ; press the soft earth about them ; 

 and if the weather is dry, firm the dirt 

 around each plant, by setting your foot on 

 each side of it. You can do this after you 

 have got them all in the ground. Now fin- 

 ish off' with your dust blanket, by pulling up 

 some soft fine dirt around each plant, with 

 a rake. If the ground is moist from a re- 

 cent rain, you can omit the firming. Plants 

 set out in this manner will grow right along; 

 and instead of being discouraged and hin- 

 dered they only seem to rejoice at having 

 plenty of room and plenty of daylight all 

 around tliem, compared with their crowded 

 situation in the plant-bed from which tiiey 

 had just beei. removed. 



To be continued. 



