Transplanting Young Cabbage Plants 63 



Slight frosts will not injure them and exposure to the 

 sunlight whenever the minimum temperature is not 

 below 20° Fahr., will be beneficial. Such plants may 

 be transplanted with safety much earlier than those 

 grown in hotbeds, even if the latter are transferred to 

 coldframes to be hardened. A very common mistake 

 made by even experienced gardeners is sowing the seed 

 too thickly and failing to thin the plants before they be- 

 come spindling and "leggy." One ounce of good fresh 

 seed will sow 300 feet of row or produce 4,000 plants. 

 Three or four ounces will safely produce enough plants to 

 set an acre of the early sorts and two ounces are enough 

 for the later varieties, which require more room in the 

 field. It is better to clip off all long roots before trans- 

 planting rather than incur the risk of having them 

 doubled back upon themselves by careless transplanting. 

 Another common mistake is in putting out small or 

 splindling plants. Stunted young plants, like animals 

 stunted in their early growth, rarely entirely recover. 

 It is, generally, true economy to reject all inferior 

 plants. Even when the plant-bed is well watered, 

 the roots should be lifted by the use of a trowel or a 

 flat dibble to prevent the destruction of the fibrous 

 roots, since the plant must depend upon these for prompt 

 recovery from the injury sustained in its removal. Since 

 a part of the roots will necessarily be lost in the removal 

 of the plant, and its power of absorbing moisture and 

 thus suppljdng food correspondingly diminished, some 

 of the large leaves should be removed to readjust the 

 equilibrium between the absorbing and the exhaling sur- 

 faces. For supplying an ordinary family garden, enough 



