PRINCIPLES OF PLANTING AND CULTIVATION 47 



that it may never be feasible to transplant this crop by machinery. 

 In fact, many delicate plants require special attention and are more 

 or less exacting in regard to handling; they will always have to be 

 transplanted by hand. It should be perfectly feasible to transplant 

 sugar cane and cassava with the machine, although up to the 

 present time these crops have never been handled in this way. 



Commercial production of plants for transplanting purposes. 

 Truck farmers and market gardeners, as a rule, plan to grow their 

 own plants for transplanting to the field. It frequently happens, 

 however, that through bad seed or adverse conditions the stock of 

 plants is insufficient or is entirely lost. If no other plants were 

 obtainable the farmer or gardener would be obliged to devote the 

 whole or a part of the area intended for that particular crop to 

 something else. The demand for crop plants by growers who 

 have suffered such misfortunes has, during recent years, led a 

 few individuals to make a business of growing such plants on an 

 extensive scale. 



Large enterprises of this character now exist near Baltimore, 

 Maryland, and Charleston, South Carolina. The managers of these 

 industries maintain extensive seed beds, both in the open and under 

 glass, in order to be prepared to meet the demand for plants for 

 the garden or truck farm at all seasons and in any quantity. One 

 firm operating a business of this character annually grows from. 

 4 to 5 acres of cabbage plants, from 4 to 6 acres of celery, and 

 large areas of tomato, beet, pepper, and asparagus plants ; besides 

 these some 2 acres under glass are used for the propagation of 

 ornamental bedding plants. Such firms do a wholesale business 

 exclusively, and while well known in the trade are little known to 

 the public outside of truck-farming districts. One of the plant pro- 

 ducers located in an especially favored section on the South Atlantic 

 coast conducts a business which enables him to supply cabbage 

 plants in carload lots. Six years ago this grower met the demand 

 for cabbage plants from 60 pounds of seed sown on 2 acres. At 

 the present time he uses over I ton of seed on about 70 acres of 

 land. Extensive growers are able to produce plants under favor- 

 able conditions at very low cost, and in many localities it has come 

 to be the practice of the growers to depend upon the " plant man " 

 for their annual supply. In fact, it is frequently not a question of 



