370 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS ON FARMING. 



From an Address before the Hampden Society. 



BY C. L. FLINT. 



The fact that the cultivation of carrots and other roots is an 

 admirable preparation of the ground for after crops, is enough 

 to recommend them to general favor, even more strongly than 

 their intrinsic value. 



Tlie true science of root culture is to kill the seeds of weeds, 

 which would otherwise cause great and unnecessary labor. I 

 have seen a crop of carrots cultivated with as little expense as 

 a crop of corn, and with a careful eye to the destruction of 

 weed seed in the manure, the cost of these crops need never 

 much exceed that of any other. Probably one of the most 

 certain methods of keeping the field free from such seeds, is to 

 apply only old and thoroughly composted and rotted manure. 

 If this cannot be obtained, we may use the best of Peruvian 

 guano, mixed in the soil by spreading and ploughing in. No 

 one, who would cultivate roots cheaply and successfully, 

 should fail to avail himself of such an invaluable implement as 

 the onion weedcr, a very simple wheel-hoe with which the 

 ground may be stirred very frequently, the weeds cut out from 

 between the rows, and the crop entirely saved from the effects 

 of a drought, with but comparatively little expense. Some 

 prefer to drill carrots and some other roots three feet apart, 

 and to use the horse-hoe between the drills early in the season, 

 and to sow a row of turnips between the drills of carrots a 

 little later. This method has the advantage of saving hand 

 labor, though the yield of carrots, which is thought to be a more 

 profitable crop, is not as large. It is maintained by some that 

 it is not desirable to thin carrots, if they do not stand thicker 

 than ten or eleven to the foot, in the drill, and that the yield 

 per acre is greater without thinning than with. Many facts 



