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, 
