Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1909-06-26

(written Specially for The Bulletin)
Every once in while read in some
farm paper or magazine now 10 raise
crops without work. | don't mean IN
the advertising columns; one expecls
fairy tales there; but in the correspon-
denca from Amateur Gardener,
"Youne Farmer and "Countryman,
etc one writes: Why break your
back and distigure your fingers pulling
weeds from the onion and Deet ped!
Get a wheel hoe and let it do the
work. Another tells how to raise a
crop OF corn or potatoes with only
horse cultivation. Il think the hand
hoe is about the worst abused tool on
the farm" said one farmer to me.
1.-THE horse hoe does the work easier
and quicker" Note those words:
Easier and quicker"
No doubt about that; not the least
little bit in the world. With a steady
horse a good,cultivator or horse hoe or
spring weeder, and a fair supply of
sense in the man behind the handles,
one can do a great deal of work on a
great many crops. Years ago 1 dis
covered that the common smoothing
harrow was the most useful tool of any
sort / could put on my early potatoes.
They are always planted in deep, yell
low EOlls JUST DIS EdI ~ DIS 4 Edll WI n
II into the proper state of dryness and
ineness. l put them in the bottom Of
burrows at least five inches deep, cover
them level. and then go over the patch
with a smoothing harrow at least once
a week till the rows show the whole
length. No matter if the plants are,
some Of them, two or three inches high
the last time: the harrow may break
off a few chance tops, bNt it will root
at Gauarq1 million small
weeds The good is so much greater
than the harm that / ignore the latter
This spring, being cold and backward
It took these early tubers a good four
weeks to get up so as to show the
rows They we're narrowed in this
manner four times. When they did
come up, they came through mellow,
friable dirt, and literally grew like
weeds" They grew faster than the
weeds. The latter had become dis
couraged, while the taters still felt
very hopeful and pushing. A trip
through the rows with a cultivator, an
other last week with the horse no.,
and about an hours work with tho
hand hoe, chopping out few docks or
milkweeds or like deep-rooted weeds
the tools hadn't torn up, and soldering
some hills which the horse stepped on
and my patch is today as clean as
any farmer could wish.
So, you see, ! believe in making the
horses do all the work they can do
and do well. That is the one first re-
quirement. The work must be well
done. Planting potatoes as I do, in the
sort of soil I have for them, nine
tenths-yes, / guess nineteen-twen-
tieths of the work on them is done o.
horses and horse tools. But one mans
food is another mans poison; one
crops requirements are very different
from another crops. l can't make the
same system-nor any other system
which ignores the hand hoe-work
with corn. My corn land is marked,
not furrowed the seed is planted
shallow, not deep; 1t is dead sure to be
more or less Uttered on the surface
with straw from the manure or old
stubble which the plow didn't wholly
cover; / have to Grow string" It as
soon as planted to keep the black
winged thieves from digging the seed
out. One can't drive a pair Of horses
back and forth under these sagglng
strings, and they must stay in place
till the corn is well up. Moreover, II
take them down. as I one year did,
to 60 over the patch with weeder,
the work involved in removing and re-
placing them is certainly as much as
that saved by the horse tool Still
further, my only experience with the
weeder was disastrous to the crop.
Enough corn hills were destroyed by
At to take all the profit off the patch.
And the same harrow which works
beautifully with the potatoes is even
worse on the corn-does more harm.
My experience with this latter crop
ts that I must use the hand hoe more
or less, If I'm to get anything superior
IN the way of a yield. When I was a
lad there were no horse hoes; we
'plowed out" the corn rows with a
liRht one-horse plow. Then with the
hand hoes, my father in the lead, we
attacked the hills. First we STONED
down and with our fingers pulled out
All the grass and weeds which were
growing in the hills. With the same
always handy tools we scratched the
dirt mellow in between the corn shoots.
Then, with the hand hoe. we cut away
the weeds In the little square Of dirt
which surrounded the central hill. and
billed it up" Say perhaps the boys