220 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



show just what percentages of nitrogen and other ingredients are found in all 

 of these things, and we will hereafter try to show how certain percentages may 

 be made in the mixtures. 



STARTING CUCUMBERS UNDER GLASS TO ADVANCE THEM. 



In many works on gardening the advice is given to sow the seeds on in- 

 verted sods, place them under glass and water them; and then transplant to 

 the field, sod and all. This may be made to answer where blue grass sods are 

 plentiful, but it is at best a clumsy and inconvenient plan, and in the South, 

 where sod is mainly Bermuda grass, it is totally impracticable. The market 

 gardener should always be provided with an abundance of frames and sashes, 

 and with flower pots of various sizes. These pots can now be had by the 

 thousand so cheaply it will not pay anyone to go to the trouble of cutting sods 

 for starting his plants. The method we have used successfully to get an extra 

 early start with cucumbers and muskmelons is to use pots of the four inch 

 size. These are filled with the regular potting compost used in the culture of 

 greenhouse plants, and the soil well settled in them to within an inch of the 

 top. They are then packed in cold frames evenly and level, and seeds are 

 scattered on the pots, three or four to a pot, and the same rich compost is 

 sifted over the whole. 



This is done after hard frosts are over, and the cover of the glass sash 

 will be sufficient protection. But some means should be at hand to cover 

 the glass with a mat should an unexpectedly hard frost occur. The pots 

 must not be allowed to suffer for water, and the plants should be thinned 

 to two in a pot as the rough leaves appear. When the weather is settled and 

 the ground warm they are easily knocked out of the pots, with balls entire, 

 and set in the rows. We always set them a little deeper than they were in the 

 pots and have had very great success in getting a perfect stand. We see 

 at times all sorts of curious contrivances advised for the starting of plants, 

 such as hollowing out turnips, cutting sods, and melting the tops and bottoms 

 from tin cans. But the true gardener knows that none of these things are 

 so good OT so cheap as the regular flower pot. The four-inch size can now 

 be had for about one cent each, and with care will last for many years, and 

 are far cheaper and better than any of the troublesome substitutes advised. 

 A gardener, like a farmer, should be a systematic and business-like man, and 

 never a potterer or a piddler, spending more labor over a substitute than a 

 real garden appliance would cost. Tin cans and hollowed turnips are on a 

 par with the plant cloth which some gardeners think as good as glass on their 

 frames. Good gardening calls for the best garden appliances, just as good 

 farming: calls for the best tools. 



