PREFACE Xlll 



"In regard to new points in vegetable gardening 

 during the past season, I believe what has been called 

 'the new onion culture' has made the most stir. At 

 one of the farmers' institutes, I gave them a talk on 

 the matter and exhibited some samples of large, fine 

 Spanish onions. After I got through I felt a little 

 afraid my talk had been pretty extravagant, and some 

 of my hearers, I was told, criticised me a good deal. 

 They said, 'Oh, yes, Root can talk, especially when 

 he buys manure from the livery stables, and puts on 

 more of it to the acre than an -acre of our ground is 

 worth ; but what good does such talk do us ?' 



"You may perhaps surmise there were some among 

 my hearers of the class that claim 'farming don't pay/ 

 Well, a few days ago, a man I had seen a few times, 

 came into the office and said he had something down 

 stairs for me to look at. On the way down he asked 

 if I remembered my talk in the winter. Then he said 

 he had bought some seed, and had been at work trying 

 the new onion culture. I felt afraid he had failed, 

 and was going to blame me for my enthusiastic state- 

 ments of what might be done on a single acre. By 

 this time we reached the place where he had left his 

 basket of onions. They were just beauties, and you 

 ought to have seen his face while he held them up and 

 told me how he did it. He hadn't any greenhouse nor 

 hotbed, so he raised the plants in boxes in the kitchen 

 window, and planted them out in ordinary clay soil 

 such as farmers use for corn and potatoes. I asked 

 him if he had found a market for them, and he replied : 

 ' 'Why, bless your heart, Mr Root, there isn't any 

 trouble at all about the market. My neighbors right 

 around me will take every last onion at one dollar per 

 bushel, and I just wanted to see you, and tell that you 

 wasn't extravagant a bit in telling what a farmer might 

 do if he had only the will to do it.' 



