The complete Indian housekeeper & cook

sowing, seeds will not require to be watered again for t\yo days, except in very dry w'eatlier. Growing vegetables require a great deal of Avater in India, especially root crops, and at the most vigorous stage of their growth they can scarcely receive too much. In pot culture, Avatering is an art dependent entirely on sympathy. One thing should never be forgotten. Rain Avater, in fact dirty water, is infinitely more satisfactory to pot-plants than pure water. The Avater from the baths should never be Avasted ; Avhile cold tea, mixed with Avater, has a marvellous effect in making geraniums bloom. Indeed, all pot-plants thrive with it, and it is this Avhich makes the cottager’s windoAV plants in England so profuse and brilliant in bloom. Liquid manure of some kind is ahvays a necessity for pot-plants. A little fresh coav manure and a handful of leaf mould stirred into the Avater and alloAved to settle Avill materially enrich the Avater with food for the plant. As a rule, pot-plants in India are starved. Another great fault in India is a Avaste of ground. Where there is so much to spare, this may seem a trivial mistake, but it is not. It gives an unnecessarily large area to be Avatered, and this means sheer AA'aste of the vidli’s time. He loi>es watering, finding it far easier to sit and drive the bullocks than to hoe and weed ; but in the market gardens outside the large toAvns in India, you Avill not see one inch of ground vacant. It is far better to have a small garden Avell cultivated than a vast semi-desert. In India nearly everything is best groAvn on ridges, to keep the leaves of the plants from being flooded. Hoeing and Dressing. — In pots the surfiice of the ground should never be alloAved to cake. This is not only to let the air into the roots of the plants and admit the Avater, but also to let the gases out of the soil. It is uoav well known that plants assimilate almost as much through their leaves as through their roots; therefore, as Avell-manured soil is always giving out gases charged Avitli volatile atoms, an open surface increases the food supply of the plant. The only exception to the rule is in the case of root crops, such as carrots and beetroots. Here the tendency of the open surface to increase the groAvth of root is favourable to forking, Avhich is 7iiost undesirable ; therefore, the disadvan- tages of hoeing may be held to outAveigh the advantages. Housekeeper and Cook 135 Transplanting. — Here is the crucial test of a gardener. Mali believes his thumb to be all-sufficient for i^hinting, whilst the addition of a forefinger pi’ovides him with tlie best of trowels. With his marvellous trust in Providence, he will sit down contentedly in the sun Avith a basket of young lettuce plants (plucked up by the roots decisively by the aforesaid finger and thumb), and proceed to slide along in a sitting posture, leaving a curious plantigrade trail behind him, bordered on either side by dejected little plants thrust into the ground by one swift action of his thumbs. That is his notion of transplanting ; but it must be scouted, trampled on, absolutely exterminated if good vegetables are desired. " Koi nahin mur ja-^ga ” (not one will die), he Avill say proudly, and possibly none will actually perish. But the check means a month’s delay, a month’s extra watering, a month of absolutely unnecessary expense.