V. CARROT. 



fore, the seeds of innumerable weeds are up long enough 

 before it. Great care must therefore be taken to keep 

 down these weeds in time without destroying the carrots j 

 and it is next to impossible to do this, unless you sow 

 the carrots in rows, no fresh dung should be put into the 

 ground where carrots are sowed, for that would be sure 

 to bring abundance of seed weeds. To save carrot-seed, 

 as well as beet-seed, you must take some of the last 

 year's plants, and put them out early in the spring. When 

 the seed is ripe, the best way is, with regard to the car- 

 rot, to cut off the whole stalk, hang it up in a very dry 

 place, and there let it remain until you want the seed to 

 sow. Kept in this way, it will grow very well at the end 

 of three or four years 5 but, if separated from the stalk, 

 it will not keep well for more than one year. There is 

 some care necessary in the sowing of carrot-seed, which 

 it is difficult to scatter properly along the drill on account 

 of the numerous hairs which come out of the seed, and 

 make them hang to one another. The best way is, to 

 take some sand, or ashes, or very fine dry dust, and put 

 a pint of it to a pint of seed, rubbing both together by 

 your hands. This brings off the hairs from the seeds and 

 separates them from each other, and then they may be 

 very nicely and evenly sowed along the drills. There ought 

 to be no digging between carrots, beets, or any other 

 tap-rooted vegetables j because the moving of the earth 

 in the intervals invites the fibres to grow large, and to 

 become forks : deep cultivation is wrong here, for the 

 very same reason that it is generally good. Carrots are 

 sometimes raised in hot-beds, but I shall speak of this 

 under the head of Radishes. 



