No. 144.] 199 



The new horse hoe of Ruggles, Nourse, Mason & Co., when run 

 at a slight depth, tarns the earth from the rows toward the centre, 

 and again spreads it evenly, and while doing so, and passing all 

 (his earth over a comb, leaves the weeds shaken free from the 

 soil, root end up, on the surface. This tool is now coming into 

 very general use for cultivating corn ; for, after the ground has 

 been once deeply plowed, before planting the corn crop, the con- 

 tinued disturbance of the immediate surface by flat cultivation 

 with this hoe, will secure all the necessary conditions in well ma- 

 nured soil tor a maximum crop, and keep it entirely free from 

 weeds. 



Mr. Solon Robinson offered the following remarks: 



One of the best modes to get rid of weeds is not to grow them, 

 and by a judicious and proper sjstem of manuring they may be 

 got rid of. Take the very land described by Professor Mapes, of 

 Mr. Reid, at Elizabethtown, and let an old- fashioned w^ed grow- 

 ing farmer use it for five years, and he will have it as perfectly 

 seeded to weeds as the most weedy farm' the Professor knows of 

 in New Jersey. The question arises whether weeds should be 

 grown. If a farmer manures his land with stable manure, put on 

 as it usually is, direct from the barn yard, before being properly 

 composted, he might just as well take a basket in his hand, with 

 the weed seeds in it, and go forth and sow them ; for in spreading 

 the manure he sows the seeds in it broadcast. I will ask the 

 question of Prof. Mapes whether his barn yard will produce 

 weeds, but I will venture to say you may spread it upon land al- 

 ready clean, like that of Mr. Reid's, and yet but very few weeds 

 will be grown. The Professor, by his mode of composting ma- 

 nure, kills the weed seeds, and in addidon adds materially to the 

 value of the compost heap. Manure treated in a proper manner 

 has the power to destroy all the weed seed contained in it, so that 

 their power of germination is entirely done away with; thus it 

 will be seen that land may be fertilized with manure that has 

 no seeds of weeds. Who ever heard of weeds of any kind grow- 

 ing from Peruvian guano? What is there in improved super- 

 phosphate of lime, that great fertilizer, to produce weeds? If 

 this manure be applied to clean land, because there are no weed 



