198 A HOME VEGETABLE-GARDEN 



variety is also robust and very prolific. Put in 

 a few plants of Earliana for the first salad. Then 

 depend on the heavier-meated more solid Stone 

 and Tenderloin for canning and pickling and 

 spicing, as well as for fresh slicing for salad. 



We may start the tomatoes from the seed. The 

 gardener who knows how to grow healthy robust 

 celery plants will easily succeed in producing per- 

 fect tomatoes. The soil that is suitable to start 

 celery is just adapted for tomatoes. The same 

 care will be needed to keep the seedlings growing 

 sturdily, an even supply of moisture, plenty 

 of fresh air and light, and care in surface tillage 

 as the young plants develop. Transplanting from 

 flat to coldframe will prevent leggy spindling 

 growth and ensure stocky plants with healthy 

 dark green leaves. The time for sowing tomato 

 seed, in a climate like central New 'York, is St. 

 Patrick's day. Sow the seeds in flats or hotbed; 

 and be sure to transplant at least once, twice is 

 better, before setting in the open ground. In 

 vast fields where great crops of tomatoes are 

 grown to supply the canning factories, much less 

 care and attention are necessarily given ; but, for 

 the home garden, when the aim is early, healthy, 

 robust plants, the extra trouble pays well. If 

 the seeds are sown about the seventeenth of March, 

 by the middle of April the seedlings will be ready 

 for their first transplanting; move them as soon 

 as the first true leaves appear. Then the sturdiest, 



