repeated after every rain. It also makes it possible to feed the plants when they can utilize food to the best advantage and to repeat the feeding if desirable. Besides, the ground in the wider space may be fitted, fertilized and another crop planted before the first is removed. The hills alternate in the rows and are 24 to 26 inches from center to center.
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Fig. 130.—Wheat planted in hills and in rows, the pairs of rows being inches apart and the rows 16 inches, covering 5 feet.
The planting may be done by hand or with a drill such
as that in Fig. 131, ingenious in the simple mechanism
which permits planting in hills. The husbandman had
just returned from the field with the drill on his shoulder
when we met at the door of his village home, where he
explained to us the construction and operation of the drill
and permitted the photograph to be taken, but turning his
face aside, not wishing to represent a specific character, in
the view. In the drill there was a heavy leaden weight
swinging free from a point above the space between the
openings leading to the respective drill feet. When planting,
the operator rocks the drill from side to side, causing
