VI 



SEEDLINGS AND TRANSPLANTING 



SEEDLINGS are little plants just from the seed, 

 raised indoors or out, v/herever convenient. 

 Their removal to better places — the process of trans- 

 planting — is a part of gardening extremely important 

 for the garden beginner to understand, inasmuch as he 

 may often make almost his entire garden this v/ay, in 

 the first season, buying seedhngs from a florist if he has 

 been late in making a start with garden operations. 



The soil into which seedlings are to be moved from 

 their seed bed should be in about the same condition, 

 as regards moisture, as the soil in which seeds are 

 sown — that is, as moist as a previous day's watering 

 will make it. And the soil from which they are taken 

 will, of course, be about the same, and v/ill yield their 

 roots readily, without tearing. 



At this stage of operations comes in the dihhle — 

 a most useful affair which, thrust an inch or so into 

 the earth half an inch from the seedhng, is twisted and 

 worked and tilted this way and that gently until the 

 soil is loosened enough to let the little plant be picked 

 lightly from it. For very tiny plantlets a toothpick 



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