Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1874 — Raising a Crop of Carrots. [ARTICLE]

Raising a Crop of Carrots.

Every person who cultivates only a few acres of ground should raise a few hundred bushels of carrots. Such roots are excellent for stock of all kinds. A few quarts fed-daily, in connection with grain ot cut food feed, will promote the health of a horse far better than oats alone. Carrots contain an acid called pectine, the gelatinizing principle of certain vegetables, which, acting upon the contents of the animal’s stomach, greatly assists the process of digestiom—Tlenee earrots are valued very highly as food for horses on the city stage and railroad lines, and the healthy appearance and sleek coats of their horses are due to the use of this vegetable as much as to the efficient grooming which they daily receive. When fed on grain and hay alone hordes do not generally digest their food well, much of it being voided in a whole state. By tlie use of carrots this difficulty is entirely obviated. From 600 to 800 bushels of carrots can be easily raised on an acre, and we have known 1,000 bushels to be produced on a good soil by manuring liberally with super-phosph'ate liWwell rotted barnyard manure, and cultivating the crop continuously, so as to keep the ground free from weeds. One good mode of cultivation is to throw the land into ridges two feet apart with a double mould board plow, and to rake off the top of these ridges with an iron tooth rake. All lumps, stones, roots and grass will thus be raked into the sorrows, and a mellow seed bed left for the easy passage of the seed drill. If 300 pounds of super-pbos-phate are scattered along the ridges before sowing the seed, it will be worked into the soil by the seed drill, anti materially stimulate the early growth and hasten the maturity of the plant. It will be labor lost to attempt to raise a crop of carrots where the ground is not in an excellent state of fertillity. Mellow ground’is'desirable; but the soil must be rich as well as mellow, or a paying crop cannot be produced.— N. I'. Herald.