S8 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chap, 



broken, immediately before you transplant into it. 

 There is a fermentation that takes place immedi- 

 ately after moving, and a dew arises, which did not 

 arise before. These greatly exceed, in power of 

 causing the plant to strike, any thing to be obtained 

 by rain on the plants at the time of planting, or by 

 planting in wet earth. Cabbages and Ruta Baga 

 (or Swedish Turnip) I have proved, in innumerable 

 instances, will, if planted in freshly-moved earth, 

 under a burning sun, be a great deal finer than those 

 planted in wet ground, or during rain. The causes 

 are explained in the foregoing paragraph ; and, there 

 never was a greater, though most popular error, 

 than that of waiting for a shower in order to set 

 about the work of transplanting. In all the books, 

 that I have read, without a single exception : in the 

 English Gardening books ; in the English Farmer's 

 Dictionary, and many other works on English hus- 

 bandry ; in the Encyclopedia ; in short, in all the 

 books on husbandry and on gardening that I have 

 ever read, English or French, this transplanting in 

 showery weather is recommended. 



171. If you transplant in hot weather, the leaves 

 of the plants will be scorched ; but the hearts will 

 live ; and the heat, assisting the fermentation, will 

 produce new roots in twenty-four hours, and new 

 leaves in a few days. Then it is that you see fine 

 vegetation come on. If you plant in wet, that wet 

 must be followed by dry ; the earth, from being 

 moved in wet, contracts the mortary nature ; hard- 

 ens first, and then cracks ; and the plants will 

 stand in a stunted state, till the ground be moved 

 about them in dry weather. If I could have my 

 wish in the planting of a piece of Cabbages, Ruta 

 Baga, Lettuces, or, almost any thing, I would find 

 the ground perfectly dry at top ; I would have it 



