Tables vary greatly some advising as high as four pounds to the acre.
If the design is to raise small-sized roots for early marketing,
possibly this might not be an excess of seed, but to advise so heavy
seeding for ordinary field crops, means that much of the seed is poor
trash, probably old and worthless, and put in as a make-weight.
Some years ago a party wrote me, offering a variety of garden seed at
a very low figure, and stated that it was of his own raising. As it
was a kind that I was in the habit of raising, I had the curiosity
to write and ask how he could afford to raise it at such a price.
He replied that it was of his own growing, but so old as to be good
for nothing, and therefore he sold it to seedsmen at a very low
figure, to mix with their good seed to _help make weight_! When four
pounds of Carrot seed are advised to the acre, for a field crop,
I think that some of this kind of seed must somehow have got into
the mixture. With everything favoring, and the farmer by experience
having his seed sower under perfect control, rather less than a pound
of seed will be sufficient for an acre. The great object to aim at
is, while having the plants thick enough, not to have much of any
thinning to do, as it costs about as much to thin a crop as it does
to weed it, with the drawback that the plants left in the ground are
more or less started, and so put back by the thinning. As a general
rule I would advise one and one-half pounds of seed to the acre,
and this the farmer can reduce in proportion as he is favored by
circumstances and advances in experience.
Twelve inches is a sufficient distance between the rows of the two
small, early varieties, and fifteen between the rows of all other
sorts. With the greatest of care the seed will not come up with
mathematical precision. Some advocate leaving a plant to about every
inch of row; others, to thin to four inches apart. With the exception
of the shorter variety including the Guerande, which are somewhat
like Onions in their aptitude to grow to a good size when crowded,
pushing out either side of the rows, as a rule I advise thinning to
four inches, leaving them thicker near the vacant places.