^ WHAT VEGETABLES 25 



sheep manure in each "hill.") Mr. Graber tells 

 of a test case where a fertilized part of a field 

 was, after six weeks, a foot and a half higher 

 than the unfertilized comer and yielded more 

 at the rate of over twenty bushels an acre ! 



WEEDS AND HOES 



An early start will, however, do little good if 

 weeds are allowed to rob your crop of this 

 fertilizer. At the Illinois Experiment Station we 

 read that "with a well-prepared seed bed where 

 weeds were allowed to grow with com the aver- 

 age yield for an eight-year period was only 7.3 

 bushels an acre, compared with 45.9 bushels where 

 the weeds were scraped off with a sharp hoe." 



"Scraped off" — focus your attention on those 

 two words. If weeds are scraped off several times 

 a year, soon after a rain, they can do no harm and 

 you will in one hour do a job that after the 

 weeds are big and deeply rooted will take you 

 five hours, not to speak of the harm you will do 

 your vegetables by partly uprooting them, too. 



Hoeing is always hard work, but think of the 

 glorious appetite it gives! I generally appease 

 mine, so far as breakfast is concerned, right in 

 the garden. (I work two or three hours before 

 breakfast.) A raw yellow turnip, a small raw 

 carrot or two, the peas in half a dozen or more 

 pods, a radish, and a tomato right off the vine 

 make a feast for the gods — sweet, juicy, rich in 

 vitamines as no cooked food ever is. Really, 



