THE OLD AND THE NEW. 43 



sash. Should the greater portion of the seed germinate 

 promptly, the plants would soon stand too thickly, and 

 must be thinned out. By all means use all reasonable 

 means to obtain strong, stocky plants, not weakly, spindling 

 things. On success in this hinges the final success. I like 

 to have my onion plants, when to be set out, not less than 

 three-sixteenths and, better, fully one-eighth inch in 

 diameter at the bottom. 



For a week or two prior to transplanting plenty of air 

 and exposure should be given. I usually remove the 

 sashes entirely from the hot-beds. That this cannot be 

 done with the greenhouse is its only disadvantage. If you 

 cannot harden the plants properly otherwise, and when 

 grown in flats, the latter may be removed to cold frames 

 for some days or weeks, and here subjected to the im- 

 portant hardening process. True, the onion is considered 

 hardy, and able to endure considerable frost without injury. 

 Pampered, coddled greenhouse plants, grown quickly in 

 congenial environments, have to be gradually accustomed 

 to hardships, or they will suffer. A single light frost would 

 kill them if set out in open ground without previous 

 hardening off. 



When the young plants are of proper size and condition, 

 and the soil in good working order and prepared accord- 

 ing to directions, no time should be lost to begin the job 

 of transplanting, and to push it to completion as rapidly 

 as possible. 



To set the 150,000 or more plants required to plant an 

 acre is no child's play, although mere children may be 

 trained to perform the labor. The miscellaneous lot of 

 youngsters that I usually engage for this work are doing 

 well, I think, if they set out 2000 plants each per day. As I 

 pay them about fifty cents a day, to plant an acre would cost, 

 therefore, in labor of transplanting alone, not less than $45. 



