THE RUSHIRE FRUIT FARM, IONIA, MICH. 
13 
Planet Je. Harrow. 
Nature has Provided 
for its safe keeping by locking it up in insolu- 
ble forms. Now in order to unlock it gradually 
as the plants require we must have a resolvent 
and the greatest of these is the o.xygen of the 
atmosphere. While it is the greatest of all 
destroyers it is also the great life giving agent. 
Unless it can have free access to every part of 
the soil plants will not grow. When a hard 
crust forms or it becomes baked or hard so the 
oxygen is e.xcluded growth is at once sus- 
pended, hence the absolute necessity, weeds or 
no weeds, of frequently stirring' tlie soil. 
Of course weeds must be destroyed or they 
will absorb the strength of the soil, but if there 
were no weeds we should still derive the 
greatest value from cultivating. 
To the thorough cultivator weeds have no 
particular terror. He never allows them to 
come above the ground. It the least disturbed 
just as they are coming up they will die. But 
when once up and established they are surely 
a terror. To pull them out and hoe after the 
weeds are half grown is to greatly injure the 
plants and multiply the cost of labor luany 
times. Last year I had a piece of ground 
enriched heavily with manure drawn from the 
city with a view of setting strawberries the 
following year. It was planted with Hubbard 
squashes and cultivated as long as the vines 
would permit. The spring being very dry the 
weed seed did not germinate until the siiuash 
vines got too large for cultivation. Heavy rains 
came on and the weeds got started. We wer& 
in the midst of our strawberry harvest and 
could not find extra help to pull the weeds out 
and for once I got left. In the fall we mowed 
them off with the scythe and raked them up. 
Several bushels of rag and pig weed seed with 
a strong mixture of pretty much everything 
else was left on the ground. I plowed in the 
fall and applied a heavy dressing of unleached 
wood ashes which were cultivated in. In the 
spring I cultivated deeply again and harrowed 
so as to fine the earth, then plowed so as to- 
bring this weed seed to the surface that it 
might germinate as quickly as possible, and 
then set the plants. The second day after we 
started the Planet Jr. fine tooth harrow, letting 
the teeth slant back, and let two or three teeth 
go directly through the row, not over an inch 
deep. The teeth are only of an inch wide 
and of > shape. The ground was very mellow 
and plants had been carefully set and I did not 
tear out a single plant, but cut and fined every 
inch of the surface. The plants will dodge 
around the teeth very cleverly. The man 
holding the cultivator will not have time to 
watch the crows fly, but must attend strictly 
to business. 
In a few days the ground was almost white 
with little weeds coming up, but the cultivator 
went through twice per week and they were 
soon all dead. In a few places some pigeon 
grass seed got started and we had to resort to- 
a little hoeing. By the time we were ready to 
