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GROWING EARLY PLANTS 



I am well aware that many will differ with me on this point. I 

 have noticed different gardeners who had been in the business for 

 years, and many of them sow broadcast. It has been my privilege 

 to visit some of the large greenhouses in Massachusetts and see the 

 plants that they were about ready to prick out into beds, and surely 

 I have seen many that I have considered absolutely worthless, the 

 condition usually caused by sowing the seed broadcast. 



COVERING 



Next, the covering of the seed. We have known of many plant 

 growers who have lost a large per cent of the young plants by the 

 disease called damping off. ]Many articles have been written on this, 

 and suggestions made how to save the plants, but many have failed. 

 I think the most universal remedy is to transplant, using a sharp 

 sand about the plant at the surface of the earth. This being so, we 

 recommend covering the seed in these trenches with sand in the 

 beginning, so as to avoid further trouble. Then press firmly down 

 with another smooth board, the same size as the flat. Now then, 

 when seeds are sown in this way, if given the same temperature on 

 both sides of the flats, all shoots will break the ground at the same 

 time and should all keep about the same size. Great care should 

 be used in watering, and experience only will tell you how. 



There is one other matter. I think damping off has tended to 

 give a greater loss where the seeds are sown broadcast; for it does 

 not allow the sun to get at each side of the plant as well as when 

 sown in rows. Some would say that this is too much work. I 

 presume if I were growing millions and millions of plants, I should 

 look at the matter in the same way, but how people can grow plants 

 at the prices they do, I can hardly see. 



In sowing the seed, I have tried many methods, and usually at 

 first I started by having a little board which I pressed into the soil 

 of the flats. This would make a sharp bottom in the place to sow 

 the seeds. Unless you are careful, those seeds would be in bunches, 

 and would not germinate properly. More than that, it is almost 

 impossible to place one of these cleats in the soil without going deeper 

 at one end than the other. Then I made the implement mentioned 

 above, and found that with this the seed was distributed evenly. 



We believe that in sowing seed in these rows, if your flats are kept 

 turned so that one side or the other does not receive a higher tempera- 

 ture, there will be a more even germination than in any other way; 



