76 



KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



for the purpose a bed three feet wide, and as long as the number of 

 your plants may require. Take up the plants with a trowel or a 

 stick, or something that will heave up the earth, and prevent the 

 breaking of the roots too much as they come out of the ground. 

 Then, with a little sharp-pointed stick, replant them in this new 

 bed at the distance of three or four inches apart every way. This 

 is called pricking out. If you have more plants than you want, 

 you throw away the small ones ; if you want all the plants that you 

 have got, it is advisable to divide the lot into large and small, 

 keeping each class by itself, in the work of pricking out ; so that 

 when you come to transplant for the crop, your plants will be all 

 nearly of the same size : that is to say, the large will not be mixed 

 with the small ; and there is this further convenience, that the large 

 ones may make one plantation and the small ones another. This 

 work should be done, if possible, in dry weather, and in ground 

 which has just been fresh dug. In a very short time, these plants 

 will be big enough to go into their final plantation : they will come 

 up with stout an i straight stems, without any tap-root, and so well 

 furnished with fibres as to make them scarcely feel the effect of 

 transplanting ; whereas, if you were to suffer them to stand in the 

 seed-bed until large enough to be transplanted, they would come up 

 with a long and naked tap-root, ungarnished with fibres, and would 

 be much slower in their progress towards perfection, and would, in 

 the end, never attain the size that they will attain by these means. 

 The next operation is to put the plants out in a situation where 

 they are to produce their crop. They are to stand in rows, of 

 course ; and I will speak of distances by-and-by when I come to 

 speak of the different sorts of cabbages. At present I am to speak 

 only of the act of planting. The tool to be used is that which is 

 called a setting-stick, which is the upper part of the handle of a 

 spade or shovel. The eye of the spade is the handle of the stick. 

 From the bottom of the eye to the point of the stick should be about 

 nifie inches in length. The stick should not be tapering ; but 

 nearly of equal thickness all the way down, to within an inch and 

 a half of the point, where it must be tapered off to the point. If 

 the wood be cut away all round, to the thickness of a dollar, and 

 iron be put round in its stead, it makes a very complete tool. The 

 iron becomes bright, and the earth does not adhere to it, as it does 

 to wood. Having the plant in one hand, and the stick in the 

 other, make a hole suitable to the root that it is to receive. Put 



