132 A FARMER'S YEAR 



This afternoon we were engaged in harrowing the young pease 

 and beans to kill the redweed, as poppies are called here. One 

 might think that the result of dragging iron spikes over the tender 

 plants of these crops would be to destroy an enormous number of 

 them, but in practice this is not the case. Indeed, it is quite rare 

 to see a seedling broken off. I suppose the explanation to be that 

 if the tooth of the harrow hits it, the young shoot, being pliable, 

 bends to one side and allows the instrument to pass. With 

 twitchgrass and redweed the case is different — they catch on the 

 spikes and are dragged out of the soil. In harrowing the beans on 

 Baker's, No. 43, we discovered that a baulk had been missed by 

 the drill, which was sent for at once to sow it. Owing to the cold 

 weather and the backward state of the crop, I do not think that 

 there will be much difference when harvest time comes, although 

 the crop has nine weeks' start of the seeds sown upon this particular 

 baulk. To the observer it seems curious that this accident should 

 not happen more often than it does, since, with two sets of harrows 

 going before and behind them, it is very easy for the men with the 

 drill to make an error and imagine that a baulk which has been 

 harrowed is one which they have just drilled. A faint blush of 

 yellowish green — I can describe it in no other way — is beginning 

 to spread itself over the brown surface of the field as the myriad 

 tiny spears of the sprouting oats and barley rise from their long 

 sleep in the winter earth. As yet, however, the progress of 

 vegetation is very slow, owing to the persistent cold of the nights. 



April 7. — Yesterday, which was cold again, with a high sou'-west 

 wind, we were ploughing the two acres of land in the middle of 

 the Thwaite field, No. 28, where we propose to sow carrots. For 

 this crop the plough is set as deep as it will travel, since carrots love 

 to have well-stirred soil for their roots to work in. Also they like 

 light soil, and some people hold that it is wise not to give them 

 too much manure. I know that the carrots which we grew last 

 year upon the All Hallows field, No. 33, which was heavily 

 manured with Bmigay compost, came very coarse and ' fangy, 



