Of late there seems to have arisen a prejudice against the hoe. I belong to the opposite party. I know too well the advantages of a thorough use of the hoe, to hold it in light esteem. Certain agriculturists, who claim to be good farmers, I doubt not, have announced themselves as above using it. I think they do not "know it all," yet. The hoe gets where larger implements can not. With an intelligent man behind it, it does very effective work. I begin with it early in spring, and keep at it until frost, and think I make it pay.

Let me give a little of my experience. Last spring I planted some Everitt's yellow dent corn among my new strawberry plantation, for shade, and to use it as a winter protection. I purposely planted it for hoe cultivation. Throughout the season I plied my hoes faithfully. The corn grew fourteen feet high, and bore twelve-inch ears; hard to beat with a plow, Mr. Editor. In my gardens I cultivate more with the hoe than with the plow and cultivator, and raise fine vegetables. I hoed nearly all of my corn land. My Defiance corn yields 126 bushels per acre - estimated, that is. I waged war upon the weeds in that giant corn, hoeing portions of it several times. The corn is turning out remarkably well. I have never seen it surpassed. Do not abandon the hoe. This corn is admired by all who see it. I cut 20 hills square of it, 1½ shocks, and shucked out 12^ bushels, corn measure - 62 ears made a bushel. Ordinarily it takes 100 to 120. I tested ten varieties of improved field corn this year, using the hoe on nearly all of it, believing as I do, that it adds to the yield. It is generally thought so.

My corn is very fine, and much of it due, I hold, to the hoeing.

Perhaps the Germans use the hoe more inde-fatigably than any one, and see what gardeners they are. I sometimes say they can make a fortune where another man would starve. There is, perhaps, no other farm implement that can be made to pulverize so well as the hoe. A loose, disintegrated surface soil is one of the cardinal points of good husbandry. There comes a time when the gardens will not admit of the cultivator and plow, from the spreading vegetation. But the hoe can always be worked. When I dispense with the former, I find abundant use for the hoe; indeed, would not consider I was gardening, were I not to bring it into service. The continuous loosening of the soil, especially after beating rains, is of prime importance. This the hoe can do throughout the season. After corn has been laid by, weeds will appear, which should be destroyed with the hoe. The most skilful cultivation does not eradicate all the weeds in the hills of corn. This the hoe can do, and should be made to do. A vigorous use of the hoe this year has given me, or at any rate, materially helped, corn fourteen inches in length, and weighing over a pound and a half; stalks fourteen feet high, blades over six inches across. I say of the hoe, "multum in parvo." An admirable improved hoe, is the hand cultivator.

I regard it as a decided advance. It will do the work of six to ten men, and as effectually as the hoe. I find it invaluable.

Lexington, Ky.