VoL. LX. No. 2663 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 9, 1901. 
11 PER TBAR. 
ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES OF PLANT 6R0WIN6 
THE BABY TOMATO VINK AT SCHOOL. 
Water and Air in its Education. 
FIRST REQUIREM^iNl S.—The essential features 
in growing early vegetable plants, such as tomato, 
pepper and egg plants under glass, as I see it after 
nearly 20 years’ practical experience, are as follows: 
First, location of the beds; after several changes I 
have found that a moist bottom, with natural or arti¬ 
ficial wind-break (natural preferred) is the most de¬ 
sirable place to set the frames. Second, seed is of 
vital importance. Be sure you have good seed of 
whatever plant or variety you wish to grow, and this 
is best obtained by selecting your own from the ideal 
plants in the previous season’s crop. Too much care 
cannot be exercised in this direction. If looking sole¬ 
ly to earliness select with 
that end in view. If try¬ 
ing to raise fancy stock 
of any kind this would be 
the first thing one would 
do, and seed in vegetable 
life is just as important 
as it is in animal life, and 
the returns are much 
quicker. Third, growing 
the young plants. This is 
usually done in the ordi¬ 
nary hotbed, with stable 
manure for bottom heat, 
and the ordinary 3x6-foot 
hotbed sash for covering. 
Sow the seed in drills 
four inches apart, in not 
less than five inches of 
good garden soil, cover¬ 
ing one-half inch deep, 
and firm the soil on top. 
I do this by rolling with 
a hand roller. As soon as 
plants begin to break 
ground give plenty of air, 
to insure a short, stalky 
growth. If the manure 
and soil used in the seed 
bed are fairly wet when 
the bed is made no more 
water will be needed till 
after transplanting. To 
insure good stalky plants 
the temperature should 
be from 50 degrees for 
night to not above 80 de¬ 
grees during the day. A 
high temperature induces 
a tender, slender growth, 
and is to be avoided at 
all times If possible. At 
the end of five weeks jyuj 
from day of sowing the 
beds situated on my place, made as I have described. 
TRANSPLANTING.—No one can tell another per¬ 
son on paper how to transplant; this must be learned 
by seeing it done or studying it out. I usuaily trans¬ 
plant my tomatoes twice (but not my pepper and egg 
plants) and think it pays me to do so, but as there 
is a much larger army of growers that oelieve in only 
one transplanting, saving that extra labor and ex¬ 
pense, I purpose to deal with only one in this article. 
We will call the seed bed the primary department, 
and the transplant bed the grammar and high-school 
departments. Now we have the plants promotedTrom 
the primary to that of the grammar and high-school 
departments and a great deal depends on the “prin¬ 
cipal” in these departments. If transplanting has 
been weli done, the plants will show signs of new 
growth in about six days or a week. As soon as new 
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seed the plants should be ready to transplant to the 
cold frames, as they are usually called. These are of 
two classes, one for such as cabbage, lettuce, etc., 
and one for tomatoes, peppers and egg plants; it is 
the latter class that I wish to describe here. They 
are made by placing about two inches of barnyard 
manure in bottom of frame, put on at least five inches 
of good garden soil, that has previously been com¬ 
posted with a liberal amount of old fine manure (cow 
manure preferred); have this thoroughly mixed and 
made fine before putting on the bed. Be careful to 
get it on evenly if you wish uniform growth of plants; 
rake level, mark off in checks the desired width. I 
usually mark mine for early tomatoes and egg plants 
five inches each way, and pepper plants two and 
three inches each way. Fig. 32 shows a group of hot¬ 
. HULSART’S HOT YARD IN NEW JERSEY. Fie. 
growth is noticed, a liberal amount of fresh air is not 
only advisable, but absolutely necessary, and at the 
end of two weeks from time of transplanting the 
sashes should be removed entirely on all clear still 
mild days, recovering again towards night, according 
to the day and temperature. Keeping the sashes on 
continually makes a tender succulent plant, that will 
not stand transferring to the field, as eany as one that 
has been treated as suggested above. 
WATER.—This is another of the essentials in plant 
growing; a liberal application when needed is far bet¬ 
ter than numerous waterings that only wet an inch 
of the soil on top, inducing shallow rooting, which is 
wrong. This is why I have found moist bottom 
ground the best on which to place the frames; it in¬ 
sures a certain amount of capillary attraction, and 
lessens the labor of artificial wetting. Trim the leaves 
a little when the foliage becomes dense enough to 
shade the whole ground, as shade causes the plants to 
spindle. I am speaking now solely of tomato plants, 
as pepper and egg plants do not need trimming; on 
the contrary, it seems to do them a positive injury, 
and will do the same to tomato plants if done too 
severely. Remember always that when you cut the 
leaves from any plant you are taking away a part of 
its lungs. Six weeks is about the proper time for a 
plant to be in these departments of our school; 
then, like the child who has finished school, it is 
ready to be launched on to the world, and if proper 
conditions and training have followed it till now, 
nothing short of success should be expected. The fu¬ 
ture crop depends on the young plant’s constitution. 
To sum up: Sow good seed (in this latitude) last 
week in February in 
drills four inches apart, 
do not let seedlings stand 
thicker than three to the 
inch; air freely and do 
not let them get more 
than four inches high by 
April 1 (and half that 
height is sufiicient if you 
are going to transplant 
twice), when it will be 
time to transplant to the 
cold frames. Shade light¬ 
ly for a few days after 
transplanting if sun is 
bright, or until plants 
catch fast; air as much 
as weather will permit, 
taking sashes off as men¬ 
tioned. Make waterings 
as near nature as pos¬ 
sible. Trim to let in sun¬ 
light, but as sparingly as 
possible, all this done 
with judgment. By May 
10 you will have plants 
that will do their best in 
the field if natural condi¬ 
tions are fairly good. Fig. 
33 shows well-grown 
plants ready for setting. 
C. C. HUXSART. 
Monmouth Co., N. J. 
R. N.-Y.—On page 365 
of last year’s volume we 
told about Mr. Hulsart’s 
“hot yard,” a picture of 
which is shown on this 
page. The “yard” con¬ 
sists of a collection of 
long hotbeds. It is lo¬ 
cated in a rather low 
32. place, away from the 
winds, with a natural 
wind-break which shuts off heavy gales. Water is 
very necessary for the plant babies, and this is sup¬ 
plied from the barrel shown in the picture. At the 
time of our visit there were about 50,000 plants in the 
yard. The largest ones were being delivered in the 
shape shown at Fig. 33. In taking them out the soil 
was cut into squares with a sharp knife, and then the 
squares were lifted out on a fork as shown in the pic¬ 
ture. When finally set in the ground these squares 
were cut again, so that each plant had its little block 
of soil. When this is set in a hill, and the earth 
packed up around it, the plant barely waits an hour 
in its growth. Of course this plan of handling pays 
only with the very earliest plants. Mr. Hulsart’s sys¬ 
tem aims to induce earliness, and to promote rapid 
and vigorous growth, in which it is most successful. 
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