226* Cultivation of Arable Land. Flav After-culture of Crops of. 



vals of eighteen or twenty inches, or perhaps more, may be proper, care being 

 taken that the machine does not depofit the feed to too great a depth in the 

 foil. After the operation has been performed, a bum-harrow, or light harrow 

 of the common kind, may be once pafTed over the furface juft to render it even. 

 When the foil is of a dry kind, and the feafon is inclined to be dry, in either 

 method of fowing it may be advifeable to pafs a light roller over the ground 

 immediately after the feed has been put in, in order that the moifture may be 

 more effectually prefer ved. 



After-Culture. Although it is feldom the practice of the cultivators of flax 

 crops to weed them, efpecially when fown in the broadcalt method, yet as the 

 plants are extremely tender in their early growth, and of courfe liable to be much 

 injured and retarded in their vegetation by the rifing of weeds, a hand-hoeing or 

 weeding mould conftantly be given them, as foon as the plants are fully come up 

 and fliew themfelves. This is particularly neceffary where proper attention has 

 not been beftowed in cleaning and preparing the ground by repeated ploughing, 

 harrowing, and carrying off or burning the weedy materials. In performing the 

 bufinefs of weeding great care mould be taken that no injury be done by cutting 

 up or treading under foot the flax plants. It is perhaps only by keeping the land 

 perfectly clean and free from weeds in this way, during the early growth of the 

 plants, that good crops of this kind can be produced. 



It is recommended that this operation mould be performed as foon as the flax 

 plants have advanced three or four inches in height, the weeds that are drawn 

 out being carefully picked up and conveyed from the land.* By having the foil 

 well prepared before the feed is put in, much expence in this way may, however, 

 be avoided. 



In the drill method of fowing, where narrow intervals are preferred, the crop 

 is moftly kept clean by the ufe of the hand-hoe; but where the diftances of the 

 rows are larger, a fmall plough, the horfe-hoe, or what is termed a cultivator, may 

 be made ufe of in order to preferve the land in a perfectly clean condition. A 

 fort of triangular harrow has alfo been found to be a very convenient tool for 

 this purpofe. From its having handles behind, it is capable of being guided 

 with facility, and at the fame time made to pafs deeper or fhallower, according to 

 circumflances, without the danger of railing the mould againft the rows of the 

 plants. In this way the bufinefs may be accomplished by one horfe at but little 

 expence, much ground being gone over in a fmall fpace of time. In thefe 



* Modern Agriculture, vol. Ill, 



