208 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



CULTURE OF PIE-PLANT. 



BEGINNERS should in all cases, if possible, obtain a supply 

 of plants, from a proved sort, by dividing the root, liaising 

 from seed is an after, and an amateur practice. The first 

 object with every man is to supply his family with this 

 esculent,, and not to experiment with new sorts. Let him 

 buy or beg from garden or nursery, enough buds to estab- 

 lish a bed, of some kind already known to be good. 



The best season of the year for dividing the root is in the 

 spring ; the next best is in late autumn ; and the worst in 

 midsummer as we have abundantly ascertained by experi- 

 ment. The reason is plain. Like bulbs, and tubers, the 

 root of the pie-plant stores up in itself during one season, a 

 supply of organizable matter enough to enable it to start 

 off the next season, without any dependence upon the soil. 

 Dahlias, potatoes, onions, turnips, cabbages, etc., it is well 

 known, are able to grow for a considerable time, in the 

 spring, without any connection with the soil ; being 

 sustained by that supply which they had treasured up 

 within themselves the previous autumn. When this is 

 exhausted, they will die, if they have not been put in con- 

 nection with food from without. When pie-plant is divided 

 in the spring, it is full of the material of life, and a bud cut 

 off from the main root with a portion of the root attached, 

 has a supply of food until new roots are emitted, which in 

 good soil and weather will be in about a week. There is 

 the same vitality in autumn, and the only reason why it is 

 not so good for transplanting as spring, is the risk that the 

 buds and roots will rot off during the winter. A uniform 

 winter will scarcely injure one in a hundred, but constant 

 changes, freezing and thawing, will weaken, if not destroy 

 many of them. When, however, it is necessary to divide 

 and transplant in 'the fall, cover the bed full four inches 

 deep with coarse, strong manure. Although great care 

 will enable one to transplant a section of the root in mid- 



