20 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



with the cultivator or horse-hoe it is fitted (the manure having 

 been put on) to be marked out and the crop planted. Then it 

 becomes necessary again, in order that the ground may be in a 

 proper state for seeding next year, that attention should be paid 

 to keeping it free from weeds. Some farmers this last year 

 thought, when they had hoed .their corn once, or put the culti- 

 vator through two or three times, that they had done all that 

 was necessary ; the consequence was, the ground was full of 

 weeds, and they had a small crop ; and next spring, when they 

 come to seed, we all know that the ground will not be in proper 

 condition to receive that seed. 



Ground that has been planted and is to be seeded the following 

 spring should be ploughed in the fall, after the crop has been 

 removed, that it may receive the action of the frosts, and be 

 better prepared for the spring seeding. Again, the stones 

 should all be removed ; or, in preference to that, I would rec- 

 ommend that they be sunk in the ground, unless it is very 

 stony and gravelly. Stones are no disadvantage to a crop. 

 Under this plan, when it comes spring, our work is simply to go 

 forward and replough two or three inches less in depth than when 

 we turned over the sod. That is my opinion. I am not laying 

 down any particular rules, but I hope you will all try this. I 

 would plough about three inches less than I ploughed in the 

 spring when I turned over the sod, because I think it best that 

 the sod should remain at the bottom for the present. Then my 

 practice is, to go over the ground with a harrow. After the 

 harrow, I put on a one-horse plough, going about three inches 

 deep. Plough it fine, and if grain is to be sown (and I would 

 recommend sowing grain in the spring for the benefit of the 

 grass seed), sow upon the furrow, harrow, sow grass seeds, 

 bush and roll. That prepares the ground, so that it is all ready 

 for the mowing machine to pass over. A pair of horses may 

 trot over that ground, and you do not dull or break your 

 knives. It is all ready for the horse-rake to follow, and that 

 goes smoothly, and is not so liable to injure the grass roots as 

 where the ground is left in an uneven state. I have thought 

 many times that the spring-tooth horse-rake is very injurious to 

 the crop of grass the year following, for the reason that it breaks 

 off a great many of the roots of the grass, especially of herds- 

 grass. It breaks off the little bulb of the herdsgrass, and when 



