274 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



soon as it is dry, by harrowing with tooth and brush until the 

 ground is level. It will not do to hare the ground too mel- 

 low. It should be rather hard to have the onions bottom 

 well. It needs to be very mellow about an inch deep, and 

 raked off level. 



It requires from three to four pounds of seed to the acre. I 

 sow them by a machine made very simply and costing from 

 two to four dollars. It sows two rows at once, twelve inches 

 apart, the wheels being six inches from the hoppers that drop 

 the seed. The first row must be perfectly straight, which 

 'Will be a guide to the second and so on. To cover them up, 

 J take a hoe that stands in well, and push it along over the 

 Siiie where the seed is. When they get up so that I can see 

 tthe rr.ows, I commence hoeing them, and as soon as there 

 :are anj weeds to be seen weed them, and continue to hoe 

 :and we&d as long as tiiere is a weed to be seen. It will 

 jiot pay to sow a piece of onions if they are not well taken 

 ,care of, and no crop pays better if well tended. There arc 

 •some farmers that lose one-third or more of their crop by 

 not taking proper care of them, and letting the weeds grow 

 ;after the onioBs have attained some size. If one intends to 

 jaise them year after year on the same piece of ground, (and 

 ■they will grosv as well by heavy manuring as they did tiie 

 J&rst year,) he must not let a single weed go to seed. If the 

 iright kind of seed ajid plenty of manure are used and the 

 aground cultivated as it ought to be, we may expect from five 

 Xo eight hundred bushels to the acre. If the ground is free 

 ifrom weeds, as it should be, when the crop is gathered in, so 

 anuch the better for next year's crop. When most of the 

 onions get ripe, I let them dry one or two days, and when dry 

 irake them in windrows,pile them up in small heaps,and let them 

 ;stand till they have no moisture in the top. When it comes 

 ,a drying day spread them out, and when perfectly dry cart 

 them in. They can be kept from two to six feet thick if they 

 .are well cured and put where the air can circulate around 

 :them till very cold weather, and then they must be kept from 

 fbeing frozen too much. 



It. seemed to me the hardest work that I had ever done to 



