SOWING AND PLANTING 



31 



the foregoing advantages are considered, it seems 

 that no one should attempt to grow early vegetable 

 plants in quantity without the use of flats. It is an 

 advantage to have the flats uniform in size and of 

 such dimensions that no space is lost in the hotbeds 

 or coldframes. Make them of, say, half-inch wood 

 of any kind. They should be two or three inches 

 deep, and not too large to handle easily when filled. 



Dirt-Bands for Melons, etc. — Dirt-bands are 

 very convenient for starting melons, cucumbers, 

 squashes and lima beans in hotbeds. They are each 

 made of a thin strip of wood veneering eighteen 

 inches long and three inches wide, grooved so as to 

 fold up into a bottomless box four inches square and 

 three inches deep. They are placed in the hotbed 

 without tacking. Pressing them down into the dirt 

 will hold them in shape until they are filled with soil. 

 They can be taken out of the bed four at a time with 

 a spade, placed on the wagon or sled, and the spade 

 slipped from under them. In the field they can be 

 taken from the wagon with a spade. If properly 

 wet down before removal from the bed, and handled 

 carefully throughout, very little dirt will fall out of 

 the boxes in transplanting, and, therefore, the roots 

 will not be disturbed. Hundreds of thousands of 

 dirt-bands are used by the truckers of southern Illi- 

 nois, and most dealers in box material carry them in 

 stock early in the season. They cost from $1.00 to 

 $1.25 per thousand. The bands can be used, after 

 removal from around the plants, to protect them 

 from the hot sun. 



Three-inch paper pots are sometimes used in- 

 stead of dirt-bands ; some gardeners like to trans- 

 plant tomatoes, etc., in them. They are made of 

 stout paper, and may last several seasons. (Of 



