MARKET GARDENING AROUND NEW YORK. 203 



pricking out in March, which gives a far healthier and 

 nearly as strong a plant, by the first week in April, as 

 those that have been wintered over. The past season we 

 raised nearly half a million of plants in this manner, 

 which we sold at $5 per thousand, a price as profitable 

 to us as the plants were satisfactory to the buyers. We 

 sowed the seed the first week in February, in one of our 

 green-house benches, so thick that they stood twenty 

 plants to the square inch. These we began to thin out, 

 to prick in hot-beds, just as the first rough leaf appeared, 

 placing a thousand plants in 33x6 sash. 



The handling of that quantity was a big job, but I doubt 

 if one plant in a thousand failed, owing, I think, to a plan 

 we used in preparing the bed on the green-house bench 

 for the seeds; a plan that I think well worthy of imitation 

 in preparing a bed for seeds, that have to be transplanted, 

 of any kind, whether outside or under glass. We used 

 only two inches in depth of " soil" for our seed-bed, 

 which was made up as follows: For the first layer, about 

 an inch, we used a good friable loam, run through a half- 

 inch sieve. This was patted down with a spade, and 

 made perfectly level and moderately firm. On this was 

 spread about one-fourth of an inch of Sphagnum, (moss 

 from the swamps,) which had been dried and run through 

 a sieve nearly as fine as mosquito wire, so that it was of 

 the condition of fine sawdust. On the top of the moss 

 the ordinary soil was again strewn, to a depth of about 

 three-fourths of an inch. This being leveled, the seed 

 were sown very thickly, and then pressed into the soil 

 with a smooth board. On this the fine moss was again 

 sifted, thick enough to cover the seed only. The bed 

 was then freely watered with a fine rose, and in a week 

 every seed that had life in it was a plant. 



Now this seems a long story to tell about what most 



