CARROT 235 



The roots of the cultivated kind will stand considerable 

 frost, but not severe freezing. Two seeds are produced by 

 each flower; they are flat on one side and convex on the 

 other, and are partly covered by minute bristles. The 

 bristles are generally removed before the seed is sold. 

 Carrots are used to some extent as a table vegetable, but 

 they are especially valuable as a food for horses and other 

 stock. 



Cultivation. The carrot is of the easiest culture. It 

 requires a fine, mellow, rich, upland soil. On moist land 

 the roots are apt to branch and are very liable to disease. 

 The seedlings are quite delicate when they first come up 

 and every precaution should be taken to have the land 

 clean, so that the small seedlings will not be overrun with 

 weeds; the surface soil should be kept loose and mellow 

 throughout the season. 



It is a good plan to sow a few radish seeds with the 

 carrot seed so that cultivation may be commenced early, 

 as the latter start slowly. 



If the seed of the small kinds are sown very early in 

 spring they will produce roots big enough for table use 

 by early summer; but for the main crop the seed should be 

 sown about the middle of May in rows fourteen inches 

 apart. A fair crop may be expected even if the seed is 

 not sown until the middle of June, although the dry weather 

 which generally prevails at that time of the year is liable 

 to prevent or retard the germination of the seed or to 

 burn up the seedlings just as they are pushing out of the 

 ground. 



The crop is sometimes sown in rows two feet apart 

 and cultivated with a horse implement. If the seed is 

 good, two pounds per acre, or about fourteen seeds to the 

 foot of row, is plenty to sow. Very thick seeding is not 



