Norwich bulletin., 1919-02-14
HOW TO FORCE EARLY PLANTS INDOORS

plus water cozes out at the bottom of each pot into the dirt or the DIE tray. What isn't needed will drain out of the pets, be absorbed by the dirt in which they are imba'lded and held there for re-absorpUiun bach into the pots, late.
 This rule holds good for the first wate, :ng only. After tha1 as n"lch care must be exercised as eycr t. pro vent flooding. Ill at least half the cases where tomato plants two and three inches high mysteriously droop and die, the fault lies in their having been drowned with too much water I know of ID rule which governs this watering rate. One must watch the plants daily and be quick to note every indication they themselves may give I of their wants So long as they grow stoclily and their foliage shows Ii healthy green they are not suffering | from lack of moisture. Personally, l l find that it is best not to water every l day, but to wait till the top soil i-' tile l pots is quite dusty and the dirt in the | big tray becomes pretty 3lY; then drench them oughly-pnough to last for three or four days or perhaps week. N:,turfllly you l"u't want to use ice water. Nor should it be real i ly warm. If the chill is taken off. that | is enough.
 From the first small pots the plants
 should be transplanted into bigger
 ones as soon as their growth warrants. When the roots so fill the dirt in the | pot that, by pushing gently with a
 match through the hole in the bottom against the shard which covers it, the
 whole contents will come out in a ball, l it is high time that they were given | more room and more dirt, For my very earliest tomatoes I transplant at | least four times. First, from seed tray
 to tWo-inch pots; second, to four inch pots; third, to six-inch pots; fourth, to the garden trench. In my latitude
 it won't do to trust outdoors weather
 before the first of June. When I put
 them out, at that time, I frequently
 have tomato plants fifteen inches high, 1 covered with buds and occasionally full
 of blossoms, with ball of roots filling
 the siX-inch pots so compact that it
 will stand upright and hold up the
 heavy plant, after being removed from the pot. These are set in a trench at ] least seven or eight inches deep, which is then filled in to the level, except | around the plant, where a saucer like
 depression is left This is filled with
 water, sometimes a bucket full to a
 plant. When that water has soaked . out of sight, the saucer is filled level with loose dirt, fiirted in with deft twists of the hoe, so as to make a dry l mulch which will prevent the dirt from cracking in next days sunshine. For those of us who have to start early vegetables this way it is now high time that tomato, pepper, egg plant and similar seeds were sown. But there's no use in sowing them
 now-or any other time for that mat
 ter-unless they are taken care of after , ! they sprout. This fofeing semi -tropica ' plants to growth during March an6 , April in an ordinary New England
 farmhouse requires some gumption ant I daily Watchfulness. It's a waste ot - seeds and window seats to start the 2 game unless it is to be played out al f the long way till June.
 l 1 But it's no more trouble than carine r for window flowers. The woman whC [ has one window full of towering gera e.! ntums, etc, this weather, can have an, 9 l other full of young tomatoes and pep. r pers, just as easily, if she wants tt n double her trouble.
 THE FARMER.