VI 

 SEEDLINGS AND TRANSPLANTING 



SEEDLINGS are little plants just from the seed 

 raised indoors or out, wherever convenient. Their 

 removal to better places the process of transplanting 

 is a part of gardening extremely important for the 

 garden beginner to understand, inasmuch as he may 

 often make almost his entire garden this way, on the 

 first season, buying seedlings from a florist if he has 

 been late in making a start with garden operations. 



The soil into which seedlings are to be moved from 

 their seed bed should be in about the same condition, 

 as regards moisture, as the soil in which seeds are 

 sown that is, as moist as a previous day's watering 

 will make it. And the soil from which they are taken 

 will, of course, be about the same, and will yield their 

 roots readily, without tearing. 



At this stage of operations comes in the dibble 

 a most useful affair which, thrust an inch or so into 

 the earth half an inch from the seedling, is twisted and 

 worked and tilted this way and that gently until the 

 soil is loosened enough to let the little plant be picked 

 lightly from it. For very tiny plantlets a toothpick 



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