498 



GLEANIKGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 



tifully, and a boy will do it as fast as he can 

 walk. If the ground is dry he can go slow 

 enough to tramp the seeds at the same time. 

 If a heavy rain comes after the seeds are 

 planted, before they are up, it is sometimes 

 quite a saving of time to go over the ground 

 and break the crust— killing the little weeds 

 before they have come up, and this is by far 

 the simplest, easiest, and most effectual way 

 of killing weeds of any kind. Raking the 

 face of the ground with a flne-tooth rake 

 does the work beautifully. On a larger 

 scale, the Thomas smoothing-harrow does it 

 to perfection, and I wouldn't think of trying 

 to raise corn or potatoes without running 

 this smoothing-harrow over them just be- 

 fore or just after they burst through the 

 surface of the soil. This smoothing-harrow 

 is such a splendid tool that I think I will 

 give you a picture of it here. 



gers and removed the dirt from around each 

 stalk and fined it up and put it back again, 

 as you do when weeding onions by hand. I 

 once harrowed a piece of corn after it was 

 four inches high, and the only horse I had 

 was a colt only half broken. As she was 

 quite young, I used only one section of the 

 harrow. After I got through my cornfield 

 it looked as if it were ruined. The corn 

 that had stood so beautifully in the morning 

 was knocked over and tumbled every way,, 

 some of it even broken off. It was my first 

 experience in harrowing corn so large, and 

 I went home that night sick of the Thomas 

 smoothing-harrow, sick of my awkward coJt, 

 and sick of myself, because I thought I had 

 made so bad an afternoon of it. In a few 

 days, however, the corn picked itself up and 

 went on growing better than ever before. 

 As it was pretty thickly seeded, the small 



THE THOMAS HAIIROW AS USED FOR CULTIVATING POTATOES. 



Terry says a field of potatoes of the proper 

 shape can be harrowed six times over for 

 90 cts. an acre, and it is pleasant, easy work 

 for man and beast, in contrast with the 

 above plan of cultivating it in the common 

 way, and the smoothing harrow does it ever 

 so much nicer, because it moves every foot 

 of the ground. The potatoes and corn are 

 as effectually cleaned as if you took your fin- 



number of stalks that were broken off could 

 be spared as well as not. It was the best 

 crop of corn I have ever raised. Now, the 

 same principle can be used in all sorts of 

 farm and garden operations. If your ground 

 is in proper order, you can scratch the sur- 

 face enough to kill the weeds, without injur- 

 ing a large class of plants, and yet every 

 weed is killed just before it becomes a weed. 



To be continw(i Jidij 15, 1SS6. 



