38 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 



SO that it can be adjusted in width to suit narrow or 

 wide rows, but it is usually necessar}?- to run it twice 

 in each middle in order to do thorough work. When 

 cotton, tobacco, or vegetables are grown on a low bed 

 or ridge, as is commonly the case in the South, a simple 

 one-horse implement, known as a ''heel sweep," is 

 very much used. This consists of an ordinary single- 

 shovel plow stock with a small " bull-tongue " shovel 



to make it run steady 

 in the ground, and 

 bolted on under this 

 point a narrow Y- 

 shaped band of steel 

 about two or three 

 inches wide. This 

 blade varies in size 

 according to the 

 work to be done, 

 from eight or ten to as much as twenty inches. 

 When in use, the point is held in the ground at the 

 base of the ridge or bed and the handles are leaned 

 away from it enough so that one wing of the sweep 

 will cut along about an inch under the surface of the 

 bed. This mellows the surface and kills all weeds 

 without tearing down the ridge. It is a very simple 

 but very useful implement. 



Formerly small turning plows were much used in 

 tillage, but they are expensive in the matter of labor, 

 as it takes several furrows to plow out a middle. 

 They stir the ground too deeply, cutting many roots 

 and allowing too large a portion of the soil to become 

 dried out, and their use tends to ridge up the rows 



A Sweep. 



