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February, 1906 
For large plantings gardeners use a tool which consists of 
a bar of wood the length of the distance they wish between 
the rows; this has sharp pegs at each end and a long handle 
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attached to the middle of the bar to drag it over the ground. 
It has the advantage of marking the rows an even distance 
apart, but it is an unusual person who can “‘toe a straight 
row,” and the lines are apt to be rather crooked and wavering 
in outline, and there is certainly a charm about straight, well 
set rows that can only be attained by the use of line and stake, 
and even these call for care and judgment. 
A dipper and a pail are a necessary adjunct to a successful 
planting, inasmuch as the dipper is more easily lifted than 
a watering pot and hence the amount of 
water applied more easily controlled. 
In setting each plant make a hole in the 
soil at the desired spot large enough to re- 
ceive the roots; place the roots therein and 
partially fill with earth, fill the hole with 
water, allow it to soak away and draw the 
remainder of the soil up about the stem of 
the plant, making it firm with a fine, dry 
surface of dust mulch. 
When all the plants are set or as many 
as can be planted at one time the bed must 
be examined for any damp spots that may 
have appeared and wherever found the soil 
must be worked over with the trowel and 
the dry dust mulch restored. 
No protection of any kind will be re- 
quired. If the work has been well done 
the plants standing with their roots in the 
cool, moist ground, their heads free to the 
air and winds of heaven, will thrive and 
grow, scarcely realizing that they have 
been moved from their original position. 
But take the same plants, plant them with 
hard, baked soil around their roots, the 
result of pressing wet soil about them, the 
soil left in the best condition for evaporation to carry off the 
moisture put in the hole for the use of the roots, cover the 
plant, in addition, with anything that will shut off the air 
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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS [17 
and concentrate the heat, while providing no way for it to 
escape, and the plant must inevitably be baked or steamed; 
cooked it certainly will.be in some form or other. 
No watering should be given for several 
days or until it is seen that the plants have 
become established. This will be noticed by 
the plants settling themselves in_ the 
ground, adjusting their leaves to the points 
of the compass and other signs obvious to 
the plant lover that speak of growth and 
contentment. 
If, however, it become apparent that the 
plants really do need water before they 
have become established, the condition of 
the soil having much to do with this, a hole 
should be made by the side of the plant 
with the trowel and a little water poured 
in and the dry mulch restored as before. 
Should there be rain before the plants 
have become established the beds should be 
gone over as early as it can be worked 
after the rain to restore the dust mulch. 
Planted and treated thus one should not 
lose a plant, though the plantings run into 
the thousands, and the plants should show 
little if any check in growth, certainly 
nothing like the setback of plants given the 
usual treatment. I transplant the most 
tender plants in the hottest sunshine and 
unless they have been out of the ground 
long enough to begin to wilt, which will 
sometimes happen if I am interrupted in 
my work, but I rarely have a plant wilt badly, much less die. 
Cutworms will often seriously decimate the ranks of one’s 
plantings, and it is well to take some precautionary measures 
by hunting for him along the grass edges of the beds and 
by trapping him with freshly cut young and tender grass 
or corn meal treated with a little Paris green or other arsen- 
ical solution. Plants that are set some distance apart, like 
gourds—for which the cutworm has a particular penchant— 
or cauliflowers, would better have their stems protected with 
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a tin can that has the bottom melted out, or even a roll of 
stiff paper. The cylinders that pictures and the like are 
mailed in are excellent for this purpose. 
