MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. : 33 - 
Committee to report on the condition and progress of horticul- 
ture in the agricultural department of the University of Minnesota : 
Col. J. H. Stevens, E. H. S. Dartt, Wm. Cannon. 
Committee on Finance. whose duty it shall be to solicit aid for 
the promotion of the best interests of the Society : 
C. M. Loring, Norman Buck, A. W. Sias. 
Roots for Market. 
Several members being absent so that the regular order of the 
programme could not be followed, the paper of Mr. P. C. Sherren, 
St. Paul, on the ‘‘ The Cultivation of Roots for Market,” was read 
by the Secretary. At the close of the reading it was ordered incor- 
porated in the Transactions. The following is the text: 
CULTIVATION OF ROOTS FOR MARKET. 
From my not being at St. Paul for a week I did not receive yours of the 
30th ult. until a few days since. I beg to state that I raise no early vegeta- 
bles that require a hot bed .to grow the plants, and only a small quantity 
of other kinds, as I do not regularly attend any market during the summer, 
but I will give you a brief account of what I do grow. 
Onions. 
I have been a grower of onions in Minnesota every year for fifteen years, 
and for many years in much larger quantities than what I do now. I con- 
sider my average crop has been from four to five hundred bushels to the 
acre, but in the year 1861, I had about eight hundred bushels to the acre; 
it was considered by all who saw them to be the largest crop of onions 
ever raised here. My usual method of cultivation is as follows: 
Soil and Care. 
I generally grow onions on the same piece of land from year to year, 
and if possible prepare the land in the autumn by manuring it heavily with 
well rotted barn-yard manure, plow it in, and early in the spring plow 
again and work the land until it is as fine as it can be made, then drill in 
about four pounds of seed to the acre, with a garden seed drill, in rows 
fourteen inches a part, and as s9on as the onions can be seen in rows, 
commence hoeing 4nd weeding, and all the wood-ashes that have been 
saved during the winter are strewn on the rows. 
Varieties. 
The kind of onions that I have raised are the Large Red Wethersfield 
and Yellow Danvers, which I consider the best keepers. 
L inf 
Jax bi 
