wet. My plan is to commence planting when the rain begins, the fresh plants having the full benefit of the shower.
The Roller and the Harrow generally go in succession, and a light one-horse roller will be found very convenient, but the large farm roller will do equally good work where one is at hand and there is room for it to be used. A small hand roller, about three feet in width, for rolling in small drilled seeds, such as beets, onions, turnips, etc., and by which the dirt can be settled over a row of peas or corn when only a few rows are planted at once, will many times repay the labor of making it. A piece of six- or eight-inch drain pipe, with the bell knocked off, an iron bar run through the centre for an axle, and the whole inside filled with mortar or concrete and allowed to get perfectly hard, will make as fine a hand roller as need be, or one can very easily be made from a smooth section of a tree trunk. This implement would probably be much more useful than the one-horse roller. It always pays to roll ground every time it is plowed, and too much stress cannot be laid on the value of firmly compacting the soil around freshly sown seed.
The Cultivator is the most important and most frequently used tool in the garden, and should be of the best make obtainable. I consider the Iron Age or Planet, Jr., the best, they having a light iron frame which is very strong without being clumsy; the spreading bars close inward, so that they do not catch or interfere with the plants in narrow rows, and admit of working rows not more than two feet
