328 HANDY-BOOK OF HUSBANDRY. 



gather in heaps of from ten to twenty bushels, and covered with 

 a few leaves or a little earth, which will prevent their being attack- 

 ed by frost, until they can be finally put away for the winter. 



These are an exceedingly valuable root for the farmer, and have 

 the advantage over turnips, that they impart no unpleasant flavor 

 to milk and butter, and that they add somewhat to its richness 

 and color. For horses, they are especially good food, and, when 

 administered with oats and hay, have the effect of facilitating 

 their complete digestion. Carrots cannot be transplanted, and 

 the seed must be sown where they are to grow. As they form 

 very much less top than turnips do, the rows may be put much 

 closer together, although, unless hand labor can be obtained 

 to advantage, it will be necessary to make the distance sufficient 

 for the use of the horse-hoe. The seed is exceedingly slow in 

 its germination, and the crop is a perplexing one during the first 

 two or three weeks of its growth, as many weeds, unless great 

 care is taken, will push beyond it and obliterate the rows. A 

 common fault in the cultivation of carrots is to plant the seed too 

 early in the season. Put in the ground early in May, as is a 

 quite common custom, the seed Hes dormant, often for nearly a 

 month, during the whole of which time weeds are growing and 

 work is accumulating, at the busiest season of the year ; while 

 the plants, after they do come up, are so feeble that their early 

 growth is exceedingly slow. Certainly, the labor of cultivation 

 will be much less, and the amount of the crop probably quite 

 as great, if the seed is not planted till the tenth of June, the 

 preceding weeks having been industriously employed in the de- 

 struction by horse-power of the early sprouting weeds. It will 

 ordinarily be found that a crop planted at this time, will very soon 

 catch up with one that was put in the ground a month earlier ; 

 while the cost of its cultivation will not be one-fourth so much. 

 As soon as the rag-leaf of the plant is fairly shown, the crop 

 should be thinned out, as, owing to the length of the root, if it 



