104 POTATO CULTURE. 



down on the cultivator-handles. At night I went over and 

 looked, and he had done just that thing. The wheel on the 

 cultivator was properly set, and the frame expanded as wide 

 as would answer, and then the man had put his weight on 

 enough so the rear teeth on each side had gone down, close 

 to the drills, some four or five inches. For an instant I felt 

 glad, for now I knew the race was mine ; and then better 

 feelings prevailed, and I was sorry that such a mistake had 

 been made. It did not rain for some time, and was quite 

 dry, and those potatoes came almost to a standstill, while 

 mine grew right on as before. The damage done in that one 

 day was very great. I have told this bit of experience only 

 with the hope that it will help to impress this point on your 

 minds. There is no theory about this. I know that I am 

 right. 



You will notice I speak of one-horse cultivators only. I 

 have tried the sulky cultivators, three of them. As made 

 now they do pretty good work, but not quite as good as we 

 can do with one horse ; and in our small fields the damage 

 from turning at the ends is considerable. With one tr lined 

 horse, scarcely a hill is injured. We are small farmers, 

 doing our best. If living on a great farm where 100 or 200 

 acres of potatoes were planted, we might leave a head-land 

 to turn on, and use sulky cultivator, and ride. One would 

 not get along any faster, however. We do a row at a time, 

 the same as they do, and have one less horse to tramp the 

 ground. 



The Iron Age cultivator and harrow combined is the nicest 

 tool I ever saw to use in the fruit-garden to cultivate straw- 

 berries. Put the cultivator end of the teeth down, except 

 the two next to the row. Have these two with the harrow 

 end down, and not slanting back, but perpendicular, and 

 raise them about an inch higher than the others. You can 

 then run, actually, within an inch or two of newly set straw- 

 berry-plants and not throw any earth over them. The 

 harrow-teeth will move the leaves around and not hurt 



