42 Gardening 



ling is tender, its roots are few and near the surface of 

 the soil, and it is easily killed by heat, cold, drought, 

 or other unfavorable conditions. At this time, therefore, 

 it needs favorable conditions, and the gardener must 

 provide these as fully as possible. His methods of 

 growing seedlings, and of transplanting for certain 

 crops (which will be discussed later), aim to nurse the 

 plantlets carefully during the critical seedling stage of 

 their lives. 



In the growing or building stage the plant manufac- 

 tures its own food from the raw food materials gathered 

 from the soil and air. It now builds up the food which 

 it makes into living matter and thus grows rapidly. 

 The gardener is concerned with providing for his plants 

 at this time an abundant and continuous supply of water 

 and of the minerals that they draw from the soil, so that 

 the cells will have an abundance of food for growth and 

 the plants will reach their full size. 



In the fourth stage, growth becomes slower and food is 

 stored away for the future use of the plant itself or for its off- 

 spring. In the radish it is stored in the root and used 

 later in the same season for producing the rapid growth 

 of the flowering stem and for the development of seeds. 

 In the carrot, beet, and parsnip the food is stored in the 

 roots until the following season, when the flowering 

 stem and seeds are developed. In the potato, food for 

 the young plantlets that arise from the buds is stored 

 in the tuber, and in the sweet potato in the fleshy roots. 

 In the onion stores of food are found in the leaves that 

 form the bulb, and in lettuce and cabbage in the clus- 

 ters of leaves that make up the heads. In some plants, 



