(544 HOW TO MAKE THE FARM PAY. 



-quashes, early potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage, and melons. 

 To these the Northern farmer can add asparagus, carrots, tur- 

 nips, spinach, rhubarb, horseradish, and watercresses. We shall 

 describe the approved methods of culture adapted to both North 

 and South. The culture of carrots, turnips, beets, potatoes, and 

 sweet potatoes has been given in the Chapter on roots. The 

 main object now being earliness, larger quantities of manure 

 and more thorough and careful cultivation should be given, and 

 two crops taken from the same soil yearly. It is better to cul- 

 tivate five acres thus liberally than to give ten acres ordinary 

 cuhivation. The implements required are Allen's cylinder 

 plow ; the subsoil plow, the marker, (see Fig, QQ^) as in cotton 

 culture, only with small teeth and but six inches apart ; the har- 

 row, with fine teeth on one side and short coarse ones on the 

 other ; a hand roller for covering the seed ; the digging fork 

 with flat tines ; the scuffle hoe ; Allen's " weed-killer" hoe, 

 {Fig. 50 ;) a steel or iron tooth rake ; a seed sower, {Fig, 48 ;) 

 and a dibbler. The latter is made of a crooked stick, two or 

 three inches in diameter, and the point shod with iron. 



Asparagus. Sixteen to eighteen thousand plants are set to 

 the acre, requiring five to six pounds of seed. One pound of 

 seed then will produce plants enough for one -sixth of an acre, 

 and you can regulate your sowing accordingly. The plants are 

 first sown in a seed bed, and transplanted the second season. 

 The ground should be thoroughly prepared.* Drop the seed in 

 rows one foot apart. The " marker" makes them only six inches 

 apart, but every other row can be omitted. Keep the plants 



* To avoid repetition, we shall suppose that all ground for vegetables 

 will be plowed deeply and sub-soiled and (unless we state otherwise) 

 heavily manured also. Fifty tons of stable manure per acre, or its 

 equivalent in fertilizers, is the smallest amount we shall designate. Any 

 exceptions to these rules will be noted, as we proceed. 



