CARROTS. 51 



good gang-plow, with bright steel mould-boards, that 

 will turn over three furrows at a time, and leave the 

 land almost smooth and level. Then we have a harrow 

 that will cut the clods to pieces, and still further smooth 

 and mellow the land. After that, we make use of a 

 smoothing harrow. This, with a roller passed over the 

 land two or three times, first the harrow and then the 

 roller, I formerly thought left the land in as good shape 

 as we could hope to get it by the use of horse-implements, 

 and that anything further in the way of fining or smooth- 

 ing the surface soil must be done with a steel rake. But 

 no, we have now a revolving harrow and leveler, that will 

 leave the land as smooth and fine as it can be made with 

 a steel rake, at one-tenth of the expense. With these 

 implements, a garden line, a marker, and a good drill, 

 field-gardening is a much more pleasant and profitable 

 business than ever before in the history of the world. 

 There is one thing which our drill makers need to do, 

 which is to give us a bright, steel coulter for depositing 

 the seed in the row. The various seed drills have rough 

 cast-iron coulters two inches wide, and are admirably 

 adapted for doing poor work. The coulter catches every 

 bit of stra\v, or root, or grass, or rubbish it comes in con- 

 tact with. The seeds are scattered in a wide row. In- 

 stead of this we want a narrow, bright steel coulter that 

 would run easily and smoothly through the soil, and de- 

 posit the seed in a row not over a quarter of an inch 

 wide. It would not only do better work, especially when 

 the land was damp and sticky, but as can be readily seen, 

 these narrow drills would leave very much less space for 

 hand weeding. In fact a skillful boy, with the right kind 

 of hoe, could run so close to this narrow row that he 

 would not leave one weed in a thousand that would have 

 to be pulled out with the fingers. Another thing in re- 

 gard to the culture of carrots which I think is important : 

 you know the time was, when onion growers thought it 



