CARROT. 1 



83 



about the first of April, and leave the plants at about seven or eight 

 inches apart in every direction. A small quantity of this plant 

 will be sufficient, as it is not a thing in very general request. 



137. CARROT.— Read the article Beet ; for the same soil, the 

 same manure, the same preparation for sowing, the same distances, 

 the same intercultivation, the same time of taking up, and the same 

 mode of preserving the crop, all belong to the carrot ; but the 

 carrot ought to be sowed as soon as possible after the coming of 

 mild weather in the spring ; and great care must be taken to watch 

 the coming up of the plants ; for there are several kinds of weeds, 

 the seed-leaves of which are so much like those of the carrot that 

 It requires long experience and attentive observation to distinguish 

 one from the other. Carrot-seed lies long in the ground ; and, 

 therefore, 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 ; 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 som.e 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 carrot, 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 ; 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 diffi- 

 cult 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 to- 

 gether 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 ; be- 

 cause 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. 



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