The Portland daily press., 1878-05-06
MONDAY MORNING, MAY 6.

wheel go where the other went previously. Such
a machine will plant with one span of horses
or yoke of oxen twenty-five acres per day.
To work such machine requires, besides the
driver, two meD. The same machine when
changed into hoeing machine will REQUIRE one
man besides the driver, and will work the same
number OF acres per day, That such a ma
chime is not the thing for our farmers who wish
10 try an acre OF two ls obvious, and as the
American farmer is generally we'll acquainted
with machine work on the farm and knows
how TO adapt these machines to different uses.
II is not at all necessary to begin beet raising
IN Maine by hand work.
Almost any seed drill will plant beet seed
well when once adjusted to drop not less than
ten pounds while running distance of four
and quarter miles or about q 900 feec, or half
an ounce of seed every 90 yards, which every
farmer can easily weigh and measure The
beets in Europe are mostly planted in rows,
eighteen inches apart, which will make in
planting one acre distance to be walked over
by man and team OF four and one quarter miles,
WORK which can very easily be performed in
one half day. The farmer is therefore able to
form tolerably correct opinion of his own how
mncn work it requires to plant one acre Of So
gar beets. He should bear 10 mind that beets
have to be cultivated four times and if the
land is very foul with weeds not less than s tx
times. But as it is out of the question to bring
machinery here to work single acres, which has
been constructed to work large tracts, the work
uas w We uouo ny maCnlQery winch Gn0 FARMER
has on hand, and an ordinary corn cutter can
be easily fixed up for that purpose.
planting should be done little differently. In.
stead of planting the rows all IS inches apart
they should be planted alternately two rows -
inches and the next row 80 inches. The horse
while walking in front of the cutivator is in
the 30-inch row, while the cultivator works also
Tor one row on each side of the 30-inch row and
thus cultivates three rows at the same time
easily. The distance horse has to walk over
TO do the cleaning of one acre each time is
therefore Il miles, and certainly does not de-
serve the name OF hard work. These sugges-
tons are made for farmers VINO have not
already made up their mind how to go work,
but whichever way the work may be done we
wish every farmer to give us the description of
it in the fall, as well as the result obtained, so
that we can in due time lay before the farming
community the result of one of the largest agri-
cultural experiments in such form that every
farmer can readily understand it and profit by
the general result.
The more the beet sugar question brings me
IN contact with farmers and the more inves-
tigate farming in general, the more L become
convinced there is not another state in eYis-
lance where farmers perform as much work
for as small returns, and if all the work was not
performed with great general intelligence, the
result would be still worse, and this includes
even numbering, which is looked upon in Maine
as part of farming No wonder therefore the
farmers hail with great satisfaction any thing
which promises to better their position.
GENNERT.