62 Subtropical Vegetable-Gardening 



of regulator ; it makes soggy land drier and dry land to 

 conserve the moisture in time of drought. A cultivated 

 soil can hold more water without being soggy than one 

 not tilled; in a sudden shower a plowed field will retain 

 all the water and give the roots of plants a chance to ab- 

 sorb the fertilizer before it is carried off. Much of our 

 sandy soil allows the fertilizer to be leached out by the 

 rains and retains not even a trace in the soluble form ; but 

 if this water were retained in the soil the fertilizer would 

 be retained also. The amount of water a soil can retain 

 depends upon the constituent particles of that soil. 



TRANSPLANTING 



Soon after plants that have been sown in a seed-bed 

 begin to show the second or third leaf, they will need to be 

 shifted and set further apart, or they will grow spindly. 

 Then, also, their root system will be developed very poorly, 

 and after transplanting they will either have to change 

 their entire make-up as a plant or die ; either one of the 

 two is expensive, as it loses time for the vegetable-grower. 

 Some plants, as cabbage and cauliflower, will do well with 

 one shifting; others, as tomatoes and eggplants, will do 

 better when shifted two or three times. A very good way 

 is to grow the plants from seed in a hotbed, then shift 

 them to a coldframe; this will have to be many times 

 larger than the hotbed to hold the same plants. It will 

 not take long for the plants to fill the space allowed them 

 (for distance and other special points refer to the accounts 

 of the special crops) ; then another transfer will have to be 

 made either to a coldframe or to a plant-bed, depending on 



