116 THE AMERICAN GARDENER [Chap 



your plants out, choose the strongest, if you do not 

 want them all ; and, at any rate, do not plant strong 

 and weak promiscuously, but put each by them- 

 selves. If you do not intend to prick out, leave 

 the plants thinner in the seed bed, and hoe deep be- 

 tween them while they stand there. Besides this 

 you may pass a sharp spade along under the rows, 

 and cut off the top-roots ; for they must be short- 

 ened when the plants are transplanted. This, if 

 done a week or ten days before transplanting will 

 give the plants a more bushy root ; and will, in 

 some measure, supply the place of pricking out. 

 Having the plants ready for transplanting ; and hav- 

 ing the ground and weather as described in Para- 

 graph 170, you proceed to your work, thus : dig the 

 plants up, that is, loosen the ground under them 

 with a spade, to prevent their being stripped too 

 much of their roots. Put them in rows of course. 

 The setting-stick should be the upper part of a 

 spade or shovel handle. The eye of the spade is 

 the handle of the stick. From the bottom of the 

 eye to the point of the stick should be about nine 

 inches in length. The stick should not be tapering- ; 

 but nearly of equal thickness all the way down, to 

 within an inch and a half of the point, where it must 

 be tapered off to iiie point. If the wood be cut 

 away all round, to the thickness of a dollar, and 

 iron put round in its stead, it makes a very com- 

 plete tool. The iron becomes bright, and the earth 

 does not adhere to it, as it does to wood. Having 

 the plant in one hand, and the stick in the other, 

 make a hole suitable to the root that it is to receive. 

 Put in the root in such way as that the earth, when 

 pressed in, will be on a level with the butt-ends of 

 the lower, or outward, leaves of the plant. Let the 

 plant be rather higher than lower than this ; for, care 



