298 Wisconsin' State Agricultural Society. 
against weeds. I found in sowing tlie carrot-seeds that they re¬ 
mained in the ground a great while. The weeds came up ahead of 
them and I found it to be a great job to separate the weeds from 
the carrots, so that the latter would, thrive. I want to know how 
to raise carrots and get them out of the ground soon enough, and 
keep the weeds away from them, and make some profit. 
Mr. Wood: I can give my own experience. I would say unless 
a man has a piece of ground that he has already, by previous cul¬ 
ture, made free from w^eeds, and the seeds of weeds, he had better 
let the roots alone. When I made up my mind to raise carrots, I 
prepared my ground by at least a year’s previous culture. I had a 
quantity of clover, turned it over, and raised a crop of potatoes up¬ 
on it first. I gave these potatoes absolutely clean culture. I do 
not let one weed go to seed. I often plow both in the spring and 
fall. I do not put in any manure that contains the seeds of weeds. 
You cannot contend too much with the w^eeds in raising carrots. 
You can do better with beets. After I plow the ground in the 
spring, and make it as deep, and as mealy as I can, I ridge 
it in narrow ridges. I do this by driving one horse in the 
furrow, and holding the plow on its land-side, so that each time of 
going through makes a ridge, and the ridges are thirty inches apart. 
I have a little wooden harrow made the full width, made out of two- 
by-four stuff, with wooden teeth, set slanting backwards. I level 
it off and get all the little lumps off of these ridges. They will 
roll down into the furrows between the ridges. The ground will 
be perfectly mealy on the crown of the ridge. I plant them with 
a drill. The roller that I cover the seed with leaves a little depres¬ 
sion so that you can see where the implement has passed along. 
That has worked very well with me in a dry spring. It will be 
particularly valuable when it is dry, because that particular streak 
will be full of moisture; then, when they come up, I am not troubled 
with weeds. The first culture I give them, I have a common corn- 
plow, with a rolling-coulter. I put the rolling-coulter on so as to 
form a perfect shield of the land-side, have a quiet animal, and pass 
along, holding the plow a little on its lay and I can run it within an 
inch or two at most, of that straight row of carrots. I hold it a 
little inclined. It just peals the surface of the ridge and throws it 
into the hollow. Going up and down them, I thin them out. I 
thin the first time over it so as not to have a double job; thin them 
