106 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



peared to be the best : the produce of this rod was 

 at the rate of over fifteen hundred bushels per acre. 

 Multitudes of carrots from this acre measured four 

 and five inches in diameter at the butt : the longest 

 one that we found measured over two feet. The 

 soil was deep, gravelly, and stony, originally covered 

 with large sugar maple, interspersed with heavy bass 

 and hemlock. I cannot admit that the whole ex- 

 pense of labour on the one acre of carrots, including 

 the harvesting, was over thirty or thirty-five dollars. 

 The land on which they grew had been occupied 

 the year previous with carrots, potatoes, corn, ruta- 

 bagas, beans, and other garden vegetables, and ma- 

 nured with long manure on the one half, and hog- 

 manure on the other. Between the 1st and 5th of 

 May (it having been previously deeply ploughed) I 

 commenced work in the morning with six or seven 

 men and boys, three horse-team ploughs and har- 

 rows ; and at 12 o'clock, M., the same day, the 

 planting was finished. I have no doubt that Judge 

 Buel, had he been present, would have consider- 

 ed the planting of the seeds to be slightly done ; 

 but the crop was a good one, being one thousand 

 bushels or over per acre. First we ploughed the 

 ground very deep, and harrowed the furrows level ; 

 then took each man his hoe, reversing the edge of it, 

 and expeditiously scraping or dragging the hoe along 

 the surface of the ground twenty or twenty-four 

 inches apart, bearing on the hoe sufficient to make 

 a large mark or track, and to remove the stone and 

 other encumbrances from the track or drill ; and so 

 on, back and forth, until the whole acre was marked 

 out in drills : then each man or boy, taking a small 

 dish with seed in one hand, and stooping down so 

 as to bring the other hand as near the ground as 

 might be to prevent the wind from blowing the 

 seeds out of their place, walked quickstep, each one 

 strewing the seeds according to their own judgment ; 

 having, however, previously received a good lecture 



