SECRETARY'S REPORT. 107 



per day, sec Youatt, also British Husbandry, vol. l,p. 125, and 

 Complete Farmer, by Thomas G. Eessenden, p. 169 ; Farmer's 

 Instructor, p. 195, and Massachusetts Reports, 1854 and 1856. 



Cultivation of Carrots. — The carrot was cultivated in Eng- 

 land two hundred years ago. Its cultivation here was begun 

 in Roxbury in 1790, yielding four to five hundred bushels per 

 acre, and considered a necessary crop for the wintering of stock, 

 in the best way. The name of the carrot is derived from the 

 French, carote. The kind which the experience of your com- 

 mittee proves to be the most profitable in cultivation, in deep, 

 sandy, loam soil, is the Long Orange. It can be grown on 

 reclaimed peat lands. On the land described, plough deep, 

 following in the furrow with the subsoil plough. In Holland, 

 where labor is seventy per cent, below the cost in Massachu- 

 setts, the farmer finds it profitable to follow the plough with 

 the spade, and deepen the furrow. The first ploughing should 

 be in the autumn ; ploughing in two cords barnyard compost 

 manure per acre. Cross plough in the spring, turning in four 

 cords of rotted manure to the acre — roll the ground to even 

 the surface, then spread and harrow in two cords of rotted 

 manure to the acre. Sow about the tenth of May, with seed 

 drill, seed of the previous season's growth. If more than two 

 years old, the seed may not vegetate. If for hand cultivation, 

 sow in rows fourteen inches apart, about two pounds of seed to 

 the acre. If for cultivation with the horse-hoe, the rows should 

 be twenty inches apart. When the plants show themselves, 

 and before the weeds appear, hoe out the rows. Where the 

 rows are twenty inches apart, as soon as the plants have gained 

 strength, run between the rows Knox's horse-hoe. When the 

 plants have four leaves two or three inches long, weed and 

 lightly thin the rows with a triangle hoe. Soon after the con- 

 dition of the crop will allow, run the one horse subsoil plough 

 between the rows. At the second thinning of the plants, if the 

 greatest yield in weight per acre is desired, leave the plants 

 three inches apart. Continue the cultivation of the crop as its 

 condition shall demand. The White, or Belgian Carrot, will 

 probably yield twenty-five per cent, more in quantity than any 

 other, but is found by experience to be less nutritive. The 

 Short Horn Orange is the variety which has been so success- 



