STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 117 



very rich to begin with. Now put on say fifteen loads of manure 

 to the acre and plow it in. Put on as much more of fine, well 

 rotted manure after plowing, and harrow it in. I make my beds 

 in lands about two rods wide. After the manure is harrowed in, 

 the alleys and water-ways are so arranged that no water can stand 

 either upon the beds or upon the alleys between them for any 

 length of time In short, this is one of my invariable rules in all 

 my planting never to plant a piece of land with anything until the 

 drains are so arranged that in case of heavy rains, no surplus water 

 can stand upon the lands or in the alleys between them. I make 

 the alleys two feet wide, as this will allow persons to pass each 

 other, and also allow a. man with a wheelbarrow, which we shall 

 find to be an absolute necessity. 



This done, the land is all raked by hand, with fine steel-tooth 

 rakes. We are now ready for the seed. The seed drill is set to 

 drop say three seeds to two inches, or three and a half to four 

 pounds of seed per acre. The markers are set to make the spaces 

 between the rows twelve and fourteen inches alternately. In the 

 latter part of June, after you have the weeds well destroyed and 

 the onions in splendid growing condition, you take your hand 

 cultivator, take out all the teeth except the center one, and have 

 that run through the fourteen-inch space as deep as the boy can 

 run it. Another follow^ with the seed drill, and sows carrot seed 

 at the rate of about two seeds to the inch. By the time these 

 really need the ground in August, the onions are ripe. You top, pull 

 and cure your onions, and take them off the ground; run through 

 the carrots with a horse and cultivator, and they will grow until 

 cold weather and give you a good crop of carrots in addition to a 

 large crop of onions. I have raised many thousands of bushels in 

 this manner. But let us return to our spring planting. By the 

 time the onions are all in, it is probably late enough to risk sowing 

 early beets, carrots, turnips, and some more radishes. These will 

 all bear some frost, but not as much as peas and onions. I prepare 

 the ground for these crops the same as for onions, but make the 

 rows for beets and turnips sixteen inches apart and carrots four- 

 teen inches; parsnips, twenty inches. Celery seed must also be 

 sown at once. This requires care, or failure is certain. Put your 

 bed in the best possible condition, and mark off the rows fourteen 

 inches apart, making them very shallow. The seed must be sown 

 by hand, and very carefully in the shallow marks. After sowing 

 do not cover it, but take a board and lay down upon the rows, and 

 press it down by walking over it. This will cover the seed sufii- 



