THE CULTURE OF ROOTS 305 



The soil requires the most thorough preparation for roots. 

 Usually they follow corn. The land should be well plowed 

 in the fall, a liberal quantity of manure being plowed un- 

 der, and left until the spring, when it is worked with the 

 Acme harrow, or with a cultivator, and laid off in shallow 

 furrows 27 inches apart for the seed ; or the seed is sown 

 with a hand drill, on the mellow soil; the drill covering the 

 seed and rolling the ground over it. This leaves the seed 

 rows plainly marked, so that they can be worked before the 

 young plants are above the ground. This is necessary be- 

 cause the successful growth of roots depends chiefly upon 

 the entire absence of weeds and the frequent culture of the 

 land. The method followed by the writer is as follows. 

 After the seed has been sown as above, the rows are worked' 

 a week after, by running a hand cultivator along them, the 

 scrapers working on each side of the row, loosening the soil 

 and destroying the young weeds. As soon as the young 

 plants show above the ground, the hand cultivator is spread 

 to 10 inches in width, and is run across the rows; cutting 

 out the surplus plants, and leaving them at this distance 

 apart in bunches in the main rows. The hand cultivator 

 is kept going over the rows and across them, until the 

 young plants are strong; when the bunches are thinned out to 

 single plants and any vacant spaces may be resown or filled by 

 transplanting the surplus plants. After this, the horse hoe 

 is run through the middles, the weeds killed, and the soil 

 worked; and by this time the young plants will need no 

 more hoeing; excepting the hand hoe run crosswise in the 

 10 inch spaces. The horse hoe is kept going through the 

 main rows until the spread of the leaves prevents it, when 

 the crop is left to take care of itself. The quantity of seed 

 used is 6 Ibs. per acre. This is much more than is required, 

 but a large proportion of the seed will fail to grow, and it 

 is cheaper to have full rows, and cut most of the plants out, 

 than to have a short crop or many empty spaces. 



The roots are harvested as follows. After the first sharp 

 frosts, the work is done without delay. A workman passes 

 along the row and with a sharp hoe cuts the tops close to 



