1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



101 



bors ever since the country was settled. Then 

 he made a rude cold-frame, according to my 

 directions, and raised his own onion-plants. 

 From halt' an acre of ground he raised S-W bush- 

 els of Prizetaker onions. The most of these 

 have been sold at prices ranging from si.io to 

 $1.2,T per bushel. I purchased some of them 

 myself yesterday, Jan. 24, paying him ?1.10 at 

 wholesale. I mention this to show that they 

 are not so bad a keeper after all, when properly 

 handled. He has kept them just below the 

 freezing-point, or as near that as he could with- 

 out injury. About i^SOO cash as the proceeds 

 from half an acre of ground that had never 

 been a particle of use to him heretofore! Who 

 shall say that it does not pay to go to farmers' 

 institutes? Of course, the neighbors laughed 

 at him when he went to draining that swamp; 

 and they made sly suggestions to each other. 

 in his hearing, that onions would not be worth 

 any thing after he had harvested his crop. 

 When, however, these same neighbors paid 

 him M.2.5 a bushel for his great big nice solid 

 onions, then it was his tuin to laugh. There 

 are a great many things about the different 

 varieties that none of us know any thing about 

 as yet. Here is a letter that strikes several of 

 the points: 



SOME QUERIESOABOUT EARLY ONIONS. 



\jMr. Root:— I see by Gleanings, "Tomato 

 Culture," and Greiner's work on onion culture, 

 you are interested in growing onions from seed 

 first planted in hot-beds. As I have a large 

 trade in green bunch onions, I am led to believe 

 the new method would be a valuable addition 

 to my onion harvest. I have about seven acres 

 of the Egyptian, or tree onion, from which I 

 will sell this spring about thirty thousand dozen 

 between April 1st and May 1.5th. Believing 

 that I could commence pulling the seed onions 

 soon after the last-named date, and thus con- 

 tinue to supply customers, I write to ask what 

 variety you would use for green bunch onions. 

 I shall Wu,nt to plant IK acres to bunch while 

 green, and one acre to remain until ripe. 



I should also like to know whether I should 

 have to use any onion sets (planting them in 

 open ground as early as will do), to till up any 

 gap that might occur between the last of win- 

 ter onions and first of plants friMii seed onions; 

 or will the latter make a merchantable bunch 

 onipn as soon as the sets? I have found none 

 of the above questions answered in Gleanings 

 or other works. If sets are to be used, what 

 variety would be best — those grown from seed 

 the year previous, or White Multiplier, or other 

 variety? 



The information given on high-pressure gar- 

 dening alone is worth more than the price of 

 your journal. C. W. Pottenoek. 



Kankakee, 111., Jan. 12. 



[Friend P., I would use the White Victoria 

 onion for your purpose, and I would start them 

 in the greenhouse right now. Get them as 

 large around as a U-adpencil, or still larger, 

 before you put them in the open ground. If 

 you have sash enough, a few of them could be 

 hurried along by putting them, say, two inches 

 apart under sash. Onion-sets will, of course, 

 give you onions earlier than seeds sown in the 

 open air, but not as early, according to my ex- 

 perience, as large strong plants raised in hot- 

 beds or in greenhouses; besides, onion-sets are 

 so expensive that I am quite certain that onion- 

 plants started in the gn-enhouse are going to 

 take their place very largely. I suppose the 

 White Victoria sets would be about the best 

 for your purpose. I have had no experience 

 with tht^ White Multiplier or White Potato 

 onions. Can some of our subscribers give 



friend P. and the rest of us some more points in 

 regard to this question ?] 



RAISING LIMA BEANS UNDER GLASS. 



Friend Root:--As you have a clayey soil, you 

 no doubt, have had the same trouble with lima 

 beans that I used to have; so I will give you 

 the benefit of my experience. After trying all 

 the methods advanced by others to secure a 

 perfect stand, I concluded trying planting in 

 cold-frames and transplanting to patch. The 

 first experiment was with sods cut into cubes 

 4x4x4 inches, with two beans placed on each 

 sod, and covered with one and a half inches of 

 pure sand. The experiment was so successful 

 that the next season some "' new features" were 

 added. The frame is a permanent fixture for 

 the bean-patch now. About the last week in 

 April the seed is placed in four-inch pots; old 

 fruit-cans that have been melted apart; oyster- 

 pails, or almost any portable device by which 

 they can be transferred to the patch. 



Trouble? Think how your heart has sunk, 

 as you have looked over your patch after a cold 

 rain, and found, on breaking the crust, that 

 half of the be'ans had rotted, and half of the 

 other half had broken off getting through the 

 ground. In the cold-frames you can get from 

 one to two weeks' start in the spring; can laugh 

 at a cold rain, or even quite a frost; prepare 

 ground, plant field, stake, and commence culti- 

 vating, all the same day if you wish. Fussy? 

 Try a few next season. 



Many persons lose a great deal of the'"de- 

 liciousness " of the lima bean by waiting too 

 long before picking. The proper time to pick 

 for cooking is when the pods are a nice yellow, 

 just before they begin to shrivel. Gathered in 

 this stage for winter they must be allowed to 

 dry in the pod. J. K. McClurg. 



Lima. O., Jan. 22. 



TILE-DRAINAGE. ETC. 



Friend Root:— In your high-pressure garden- 

 ing notes in Gleanings of Nov. 1.5. you tell of 

 Mr. Kraver's tile-di'ainage, all paid for with a 

 second crop, in a single season. I should be 

 glad to know more of that " highest hill in the 

 county." How many acres? How many rods, 

 and how deep are the tiles laid? How far apart 

 are the drains? Did he employ an engineer? 



I wish to tell you a bit of mv own experience 

 in tile-draining. In the fall of 1879, while my 

 father was away on a visit. I bought MO.OO 

 worth of three-inch tile, and spent time to the 

 value of ?10.(X) in laying them in a small piece 

 of ground containing '^^ acres. There were 

 two ponds on this ground, making it so wet as 

 to be almost valueless. When my father came 

 home I told him I thought he ought to give me 

 the entire first ci'op on this land in payment for 

 the drainage. (He owned the land, and I was 

 renting it of him at that time.) He agreed to 

 my proposition. Well. I got 170 bushels of ex- 

 cellent corn from the 2;^k acres, for which I re- 

 ceived (50 cts. per bushel, making ^102, from 

 which take the *20.00 expense of tile and laying, 

 and this left me .-?82.00 to pay for working the 

 ground. I was somewhat of an enthusiast on the 

 subject of tile-drainage before this; but after- 

 wai'd my enthusiasm knew no bounds, and still 

 continues on the increase. About seven years 

 ago I bought a good telescope level, and. besides 

 doing my own leveling for drainagi^ (I own a 

 farm now). I have been assisting my neighbors 

 in laying out systems of drains on their farms, 

 having laid out over 88.000 feet this fall. 



I have read with great interest W. I. Cham- 

 berlain's book, " Tile Drainage.'' aiid will read it 

 again as soon as I get my corn husked. 



LaSalle. III., Nov. 25. E. II. Whitaker. 



