42 GARDEN PROJECT 
gardening. It is used principally for inducing early 
maturity; it also enables us to grow some crops like 
eggplants which otherwise require too long a season. 
By putting plants in hot-beds or frames, as long as they 
can be so handled without injury, they can later be 
planted in soil which has been freshly worked with the 
assurance of an early yield; whereas if the seeds were 
planted directly in the open, the young plants would 
have to battle with bad weather and soil conditions at 
the time when they could least endure it. 
The time of planting the seeds will depend altogether 
upon the crop grown. The operations will be facili- 
tated if the seeds are sown in shallow flats, which may 
be carried about as desired. When the plants have be- 
gun to show their first pair of true leaves, they should 
be shifted, which is nothing more or less than taking 
them up from the seed flat and planting them in other 
flats or in pots where they are given greater room. In 
the case of eggplants and head lettuce, which do not 
transplant easily, it is better to handle the plants in 
pots than in flats, for they transplant to the open more 
readily because their root systems are injured less. 
Cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, and 
tomatoes can be very well handled in flats, or they 
may be shifted to the open bed. Onions are sometimes 
started in the hot-bed in order to secure a larger bulb, 
but they are never shifted. Sweet potatoes are never 
shifted. Beets are often started in greenhouses or hot- 
beds, by market gardeners, to secure an earlier crop 
but they too are never shifted. 
A short time previous to planting in the field, the 
plants should be transferred to a cold frame so that 
they may ‘‘harden off.’’ A cold frame is like a hot- 
bed with the exception that it has not bottom heat. - 
