FARMS. 159 



wants of business. Machinists acknowledge no perfection and 

 admit of no impossibility. They believe that for every imper- 

 fection there must somewhere be a remedy. Meanwhile the 

 mower and other excellent machines are gradually working 

 their way into use, by demonstrating that farmers cannot afford 

 to do without them. Every thing of this kind is first opposed 

 and then adopted, and no doubt men are now living who ridi- 

 cule the mower, and will, by and by, plough their fields by 

 steam. It is simply a question of time. We cannot foresee 

 where progress in invention will stop, or why it should stop 

 at all. 



Previous reports have contained full notices of the value and 

 the best metliods of raising carrots. We refer to the subject 

 again to notice the fact of their increasing culture. As there 

 is but one opinion of their utility, almost every farmer has a 

 piece of land in carrots. We think they will hereafter be more 

 extensively cultivated, in consequence of the uncertain yield 

 of potatoes. We have noticed several instances of what 

 appears to be a blight or rust of the tops, checking the growth 

 of the roots. Whatever tends to facilitate their early and rapid 

 growth will tend also to diminish their liability to this disorder. 

 Carrots require a good soil, very deeply and finely ploughed, 

 and furnished with well-rotted manure. The land may be laid 

 in ridges with a plough, the centres of the ridges being two 

 feet apart. The seed is best sown with a machhie. In good 

 land, with a favorable season, twenty tons may be grown on an 

 acre. It may be assumed that seventy-five pounds of carrots 

 are equal in value to eighteen pounds of good hay. This esti- 

 mate will make twenty tons of carrots equal to four tons and 

 sixteen-hundrcdths of hay. When we have ascertained the cost 

 of both crops, with the expense of feeding them out, and the 

 condition in which the land is left, we have some of the ele- 

 ments of a judgment respecting the comparative profitableness 

 of carrots and grass. Not all ; for besides the immediate and 

 beef-making or milk-making results, we are to consider the 

 effect upon the health of cattle and horses, as well as the gen- 

 eral idea of all root crops, namely, to increase manure by 

 means of stock, and to invigorate the land exhausted by grain. 

 It is admitted that a mixed diet, as of roots and hay, is better 



