94 BUTA EAGA CULTURE. Part V 



his own back eight or twelve days, for the sake of 

 keeping all his stock through the spring months^ i 

 when dry food is loathsome to them, and when 

 grass is by nature denied ? 



78. Observing well ivhat has been said about 

 earth perfectly fresh, and never forgetting this, let 

 us now talk about the act of planting ; the mere 

 mechanical operation of putting the plant into thel 

 ground. We have a setting-stick, which should be| 

 the top of a spade-handle cut oif, about ten inches 

 below the eye. It must be pointed smoothly ; and, 

 if it be shod with thin iron, that is to say, covered 

 with an iron sheath, it will work more smoothly, 

 and do its business the better. At any rate the 

 point should be nicely smoothed, and so should the 

 whole of the tool. The planting is performed like 

 that of cabbage plants ; but, as I have met with 

 very few persons, out of the market gardens and 

 gentlemen's gardens in England, who knew how to 

 plant a cabbage plant, so I am led to suppose, that 

 very few, comparatively speaking, know how to 

 plant a turnip plant. 



79. You constantly hear people say, that they 

 wait for a shower, in order to put out their cabbage 

 plants. Never was there an error more general 

 or more complete in all its parts. Instead of rainy 

 weather being the best time, it is the very worst 

 time, for this business of transplantation, whether 

 of cabbages, or of any thing else, from a lettuce 

 plant to an apple tree. I have proved the fact in 

 scores upon scores of instances. The first time 

 that I had any experience of the matter was in the 

 planting out of a plot of cabbages in my garden at 

 Wilmington, in Delaware. I planted in dry weather, 

 and, as 1 had always done, in such cases, I watered 

 the plants heavily ; but, being called away for som£ 

 purpose, I left one row iinwatered, and ithappei^sd, ' 

 that it so continued without my observing it 'tiJW 

 the next day. The sun had so completely scorchod 



