856 



(jiLKiUSi^GS 1^ JiJib: CUJ.TUUK. 



Nov. 



Go ou to the next one, until you have a 

 wheelbarrow-load of " potted plants." Yes, 

 my friends, and they are just the nicest 

 potted plants you ever saw in your life ; and 

 you can take them up and pitcli them into 

 the wheelbarrow, all in a heap, without any 

 possibility of injury, either to the roots or 

 foliage. Tlie operation of forcing the tube 

 into the ground cuts off the runners, so you 

 have not even that to bother you. When 

 you have got a load, run the wheelbarrow 

 into the field where you are going to set your 

 plants out. If the soil is as soft and mellow 

 as it ought to be, you can scoop out the soil 

 witli your hands and set the tubes in half 

 their depth, almost as fast as you can crawl 

 along on your hands and knees. You don't 

 need any firming, or any thing of that sort, 

 for the plant stands just where it did orig- 

 inally. The roots are all spread out just as 

 they grew ; and the same dirt the plant was 

 feeding from before you moved it, will feed 

 it in its new location. In fact, the plants 

 are just as well off as when in the old bed, 

 and they are not crowded a bit. There is 

 plenty of sun and air all around them, and 

 not a weed to botlier. 



Well, we had got that far with our inven- 

 tion several months ago ; but the difficulty 

 of getting the plants out of the tin tube was 

 what troubled us. We tried having a tube 

 that would unhook, but that was a bungling 

 operation. If the soil was loose, it let the 

 ball of eartli break and rattle off from the 

 roots. Besides, the whole thing was ricketty. 

 You may be surprised a little to think I stud- 

 ied hard and long for a remedy, and that,when 

 it was found, it Mas so simple there was 

 hardly any need of making any fuss about 

 it. Simple as it was, it made us send up a 

 shout when we hit it. Well, the plan to get 

 them out is simply this : Put a half or a 

 whole teacupful of water in the top of every 

 tube. We tried this at first ; but Fred, who 

 was helping me, said it would not work. 



" Look here, Fred ; try filling twenty or 

 thirty of them witli water ; and when you 

 have got the last one filled, go back to the 

 first and see if it won't come out.'' 



He took hold of the tin and pulled just a lit- 

 tle, and it slid out just as easily as you might 

 expect a chunk of butter to slip out if the 

 can had been warmed. In fact, the plant, 

 in its surrounding soil, was in a state of 

 mud, and therefore slid right out. There it 

 stood, the earth saturated with water, and 

 nicely mulched with dry earth all around 

 it. The operation of transplanting, instead 

 of checking its growth, really gave the plant 



new life. When your tubes are all picked 

 up, pitch them into the wheelbarrow and go 

 after another load. 



You may say this arrangement can not 

 entirely take the place of potted plants, for 

 it can be applied only to bringing them 

 from one part of the farm to another, or, say, 

 from a neighbor who lives not more than 

 four or five miles away. 1 have thought of 

 this. The plants could be shipped in the 

 tubes just as well as they ship potted plants 

 in pots, providing the purchaser would pay 

 for the tubes ; or they can be slipped out 

 and put in paper bags, or rolled up in a bit 

 of paper, as they do potted plants, but you 

 can not then get them into the ground quite 

 as nicely as where you have the tins. 



Every time I use these tubes I am sur- 

 prised as well as pleased. They do the 

 work perfectly, and we never had any sort 

 of transplanting done so rapidly as we do it 

 with these things. The size I have given is 

 especially for strawberries, raspberries 

 (where the plants are small), celery, cab- 

 bage, cavdiflower, lettuce, and tomatoes. 

 The especial advantage of this arrangement 

 is. that you take enough good rich soil along 

 with the plant to give it quite a start toward 

 making a crop. It is not very expensive, 

 you know, to make the plant-bed very rich. 

 You can rake into it a heavy dose of fine old 

 stable manure, and that at no very great 

 expense. You can also, if you choose, add 

 guano and bone-dust, so as to make it the 

 very best kind of soil to push things into a 

 magnificent growth. Now, when you take 

 up your plants, you take along enough of 

 this rich compost to almost make sure of a 

 moderate crop, even if the ground you put 

 them in is not up to the very highest notch. 

 You may say the plants must stand very 

 evenly, and at just such a distance apart in 

 the plant-bed ; to which I reply, we have 

 found that it is by no means necessary. 

 Transplanted plants are. of course, much 

 the best for this or any other purpose ; but 

 during the past few months we have been 

 taking lettuce-plants right from the seed- 

 bed down in the fields, and setting them in 

 the greenhouse. While in the seed-bed, 

 they stood so thickly that forcing down the 

 tin tube once would take away from three 

 or four to a dozen plants. Well, we have 

 found this, in place of being a detriment, 

 gives the very nicest lettuce. Set your tube 

 with three or four plants in it, or more, in 

 the bed in the greenhouse, and then place 

 others so as to be from six to eight inches 

 apart, as you may decide. The plants in 



