18S6 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



495 



it ; but it seems the demands of the present 

 age point strongly toward making the 

 amount acomplished a gauge of a day's 

 work, and not the number of liours put in. 

 It is an easy matter to get in the hours ; and 

 where one who is working thinks principally 

 of getting the hours in, without regard to 

 the amount accomplished, he will very soon 

 be out of a job, or be working for small pay. 



Money is an excellent stimulant to be used 

 in getting people to move and think lively ; 

 but woe betide the one whose only and higli- 

 est ambition is to get money; that is, to get 

 it without any particular regard to the 

 equivalent he gives the world in exchange. 

 Is it not a thousand times better to be work- 

 ing for Chriftfii sake instead of for 7noney''s 

 ! sakeV 



CHAPTER XV. 



SOAVING THE SEED. 



The hand of the diligent shali bear rule; but the slothful shall be under tribute.— PROV. 12: 21. 



At the close of Chapter XVI. we had our 

 ground prepared, ready for sowing seeds, or 

 for setting out plants. Well, after we'decide 

 what is to go on the ground, it is to be 

 marked, for we want our plants or vegeta- 

 bles in rows at exact distances apart, and 

 the rows perfectly straight, or as nearly so 

 as we can well get them. There are many 

 kinds of markers used for laying out the 

 rows, but I am free to confess that I am not 

 satisfied with any thing I ever saw or heard 

 of. You can get along very rapidly in mark- 

 ing your ground by having a marker with 

 teeth set as far apart as you want the marks. 

 I object to every thing of this sort, because 

 it is easily bumped from one side to the oth- 

 er. A good many farmers use a corn-mark- 

 er with a sort of shoe, or sled-runner, in 

 place of the teeth, and this is, I think, a 

 great improvement ; but I have yet to see 

 one where these runners were easily shifted 

 from one distance to another. A furrower 

 and marker is advertised and illustrated in 

 many of ovu- agricultural papers, having a 

 revolving steel wheel to go after the steel 

 runner, that carries the machine steady; 

 but this machine has the fault I have just 

 mentioned, of being tedious to adjust for 

 rows at different distances apart. If you 

 sow your seeds with the drill, the drill itself 

 has usually an arrangement for making a 

 mark for the next row ; but I don't like this 

 arrangement, because it is not sufficiently ac- 

 curate. We want our plants so perfectly in 

 a line that the latest improved cultivators 

 can be made to run within half an inch of 

 the plants. Now, this will be impossible if 

 the plants stand zigzag — one out of row on 

 one side, and one out of row on the other 

 Bide. Stretching a line does very well for 



setting out some kinds of plants ; but it is 

 too slow and too much machinery — the line 

 must be shifted every little while, and mea- 

 surements must be made at each end, and 

 even then the rows will be getting wider at 

 one end than at the other, every little while. 

 Something to be drawn by a horse, or a span 

 of horses, that will make two or more marks 

 at once, is what is wanted ; and the machine 

 should be capable of adjustment, so as to 

 make these marks of any depth or any width. 

 For planting out small celery-plants, a Y- 

 shaped groove, perhaps not more than an 

 inch deep, is all that is w^anted, while for 

 planting potatoes we want a furrow as deep 

 as would be made by a one-horse plow. The 

 machine should be capable of doing either, 

 and making marks or furrows of all depths 

 and widths between jthese. Darnell's fur- 

 rower and marker comes closest to all these 

 requirements, but it needs improving con- 

 siderably before it is just -what is wanted. 

 Lest you be inclined to think it is a matter 

 of small moment in regard to dropping seeds 



IMPORTANCE OF HAVING YOUR GROUND IN 

 STRAIGHT ROWS, ILLUSTRATED. 



