The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1899-05-31
AGRICULTURAL.
Garden and Field Notes.

Many plants have to be started in
beds and then transplanted. This gen.
orally stops, or at least checks, the
growth of the plant for a short time,
but under unfavorable conditions the
plant may die. Plants give off water
or moisture through their leaves. This
has to be taken up by the roots of the
plant, and in transplanting the deli
cate fibres of the root system are brok-
en- off and unless the remaining roots
are kept we'll supplied with moisture,
the plant gets 80 dry that it dies. There
are several things to be done to guard
against this. If newly set plant is
exposed to the hot sun, it will dry up
much more quickly, 30 it is better to
transplant in the evening, or best
of all in cloudy weather, and just be-
fore rain. If the weather is dry, the
plants must be watered, but care needs
to be taken to draw some loose earth
over the wet soil, or it will bake and
get 30 hard as to greatly injure the
plant. Then it is well to remove some
of the leaves, as they will be pretty
sure to die and if removed will lessen
the evaporation from leaf surface, and
keep more even balance between the
leaves and roots. When setting plants
it is of the greatest importance to press
ha coil ftr,,lx, ha I'hnn
the tiny rootlets can start out into fresh
wet soil and begin to feed the plant at
once. Only fine soil should come in
contact With the roots. Shade is neces-
sary where the sun is very hot, and
anything which will keep off the direct
rays of the sun will do.
1t has now been demonstrated by the
Wisconsin Experiment Station that
there is no need of warming water TO
use in watering plants in warm weather.
If the hot, dry days are bad for trans
planting, they are good for killing
weeds. Most weeds are so much like
cultivated plants that when they are
torn up by the roots and left in the hot
sun, they die. "Pusley" is an excep-
ton. 1t seems to enjoy the process,
and it has amazing powers of recuper-
alton. So has smartweed, for it seems
as though if bit of the stem touched
the earth, it would take root there and
grow. If you can place it where it
cannot touch the ground, you may be
reasonably sure it will die.
But most perennial plants have roots
that 60 away down so deep into the
soil tina: taking off the plant at the sur
face of the ground has very little effect
on them, if done only once. But if
done every three days not even quack
grass can stand it. We have told our
readers how to kill quack and every
other similar weed. Go over the
ground every three days with cutaway
harrow or similar tool, 80 as to destroy
every green thing, and do this from the
time you can work the ground in the
spring until the first of June, and you
will not be much troubled after that by
the perennial weeds or any others.
Do not stop the cultivator too soon.
1t pays to run it until-wel there is q
picture in one of the Cornell Station
bulletins of a man cultivating corn
when it is higher than the horse's back.
Plant the corn rows four feet apart
and cultivate all summer, or until you
SOW on seeding of crimson clover.
Later cultivating pays. Yon remem.
Der those big potato crops were grown
on land cultivated seven to nine times
or as long as the cultivator could be run
through the rows.