316 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



taken to have the rows of a uniform width and perfectly 

 straight, because sliding, scuffle or wheel hoes, and cultivators, 

 can be adjusted so as to run nearer to the rows, and will do 

 better and cleaner work than they can where the rows are 

 crooked ; straight rows also look better, and good looks are not 

 to be despised in the garden or on the farm. 



It will be necessary when sowing the seed to so adjust the 

 machine that the seed will be planted and covered at a uniform 

 and proper de}>th, which will vary somewhat with the different 

 varieties of vegetables, and which it will be unnecessary to 

 describe here. The seed having been planted, if good, it should 

 soon germinate, and the plants be above ground. Now, there 

 is hardly a variety of garden vegetable but that will be benefited 

 by hoeing as soon as possible after it reaches the surface, 

 because the hoeing will loosen the surface of the ground, which 

 may have become crusted over and hard. The plants will grow 

 better, and the weeds can be killed with half of the trouble 

 and expense that they could be if left for a few days longer, and 

 in many instances with much less injury to the crop. 



We think the economy and importance of early and frequent 

 hoeing, either is not well understood, or is not so commonly 

 practised as it should be. Many neglect this, which is one of 

 the most necessary things in good cultivation, both in the gar- 

 den and on the farm, and make it their practice to wait until 

 there is a good stand of weeds to hoe and pull up. The result is 

 that the weeds are much harder to destroy, and the crop not so 

 much benefited as it would have been by an earlier hoeing, 

 and perhaps injured by the delay. The expense is also certainly 

 increased by the above cause ; in fact, we know of instances 

 where the actual cost was less to hoe a piece of corn four times, 

 when attended to in the proper time, than it would have been 

 to have hoed the same piece twice after the weeds had become 

 rooted strongly. 



Then the advantage of frequent stirring of the soil in a severe 

 drought, such as we have experienced the past summer, either 

 by a cultivator or the hoe, cannot be too highly rccommendea, 

 which, with the entire freedom from Weeds, will in many instances 

 save the crop from drying up, and sometimes becoming almost 

 a total lo^, and it will always make the crop better and larger 

 in quantity. 



