Training the Plant 101 



In most cases it is best to wait until fall to thin the rows. 

 A toothed implement is dragged across the rows, not 

 lengthways, to draw the weak runners into the alleys. 

 This is done when the growing season is drawing to a close ; 

 in September or October, according to the locality. Run- 

 ners formed after that time are winter-killed. Weak run- 

 ners are uprooted and pulled off. An iron rake or five-tined 

 potato digger are used. Fall thinning by hand costs eight 

 to ten dollars an acre, which is less than the same results 

 could have been secured for by cutting off the runners dur- 

 ing the growing season. In large operations, a spike- 

 toothed harrow or weeder is dragged over the bed each 

 way. There are so many uprooted plants that the field 

 may look ruined. Many of these are not pulled off, but 

 dry out and winter-kill. 



Another method is to cut out part of each row with a 

 hoe or plow. A hoe with a short blade about three inches 

 wide is drawn squarely across the row, cutting off all plants. 

 Then a space of the same width is left, then another 

 strip of plants is removed, and so on. In case of severe 

 crowding the row may be thinned by checking with a light, 

 one-horse turning plow or single shovel. Furrows are 

 turned across the rows every three feet. The middle of 

 each row is then split lengthways, which leaves the field 

 in checks about three feet square. It is then harrowed 

 both ways. By this time the field looks like a seed-bed, 

 but the crop harvested the following spring may justify this 

 heroic treatment. Part of the benefit is due to the control 

 of winter weeds. Fall thinning with the plow is practiced 

 most commonly in the South, especially in Missouri and 

 Arkansas; thinning with the rake or harrow is more 

 satisfactory in the North. 



Fall thinning is gaining in favor. Few growers who have 



