used, glance it out of its course in among the tender plants. 



HOEING AND WEEDING. 



In from two to three weeks, if the weather is an average 

 for the season, the young plants by a close examination may 

 be seen pushing their green arches above the surface, bearing 

 a close resemblance to a curve of grass. As soon as suffi- 

 ciently up to enable a sharp eye to determine the course of 

 the rows, without delaying a day or an hour, it the weather 

 permits, the prudent cultivator will slide through his Scuffle 

 Hoe, as at this season of the year the weather is very uncer- 

 tain, and the land may become too wet to be worked soon 

 after the young plants appear, and yet not too wet to hinder 

 a rapid growth of weeds. Sowing a few radish with the 

 onion seed is sometimes practised. As the radish seed veg- 

 etates in a few days the rows are thereby marked out and the 

 wheel hoe can be used earlier. Care need be taken that the 

 radish seed are not larger than the onion and so clog the 

 hole. To obtain very choice cabbage plants, which grow fine 

 and stocky, farmers drop a few seed into the hopper with the 

 onion seed. On so rich a seed bed, prompt action is very 

 necessary, or a miserably discouraging tangle will soon be 

 the result of negligence. In their comparative freedom from 

 weeds the cultivators in the West, on their new land, have a 

 great advantage over their brethren in the East. By selecting 

 pasture land and avoiding the use of barn manure, the work 

 of weeding may be greatly reduced. I have raised a crop 

 on such land, when the entire expense from after the crop 

 was planted until it was gathered and got into the barn was 

 but $35.00 to the acre. It was so free of weeds that one 

 man slid through, hand weeded and partly thinned an acre 

 and a quarter inside of a day. In about a week after the hoe 

 has passed through them, the young plants will need their 



