(j52 HOW TO MAKE THE FARM PAY. 



be prepared for the seed as soon as it is dry, by harrowing 

 with tooth and brush until the ground is level. It needs to be 

 very mellow, about an inch deep, and raked off level. It re- 

 quires from three to four pounds of seed to the acre. I sow 

 them by a machine made very simple, and costing from two to 

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

 The first row must be perfectly straight, which will be a guide 

 to the second, and so on. To cover them up, I take a hoe that 

 stands in well, and push it along over the line where the seed 

 is. When they get up so that I can see the rows, I com.mence 

 hoeing them, and as soon as there are any weeds to be seen weed 

 them; and continue to hoe and weed as long as there is a weed 

 to be seen. It will not pay to sow a piece of onions if they are 

 not taken care of, and no crop pays better if well tended." 



The main points are to prepare the land very thoroughly, to 

 put on a large quantity of manure, and not less than fifty 

 bushels of ashes, and to keep down the weeds. Six bushels of 

 salt to the acre, after the first hoeing, is beneficial. After the 

 crop is gathered, free the land from weeds ; let none go to seed. 

 To keep onions in the winter, store them so that they will have a 

 circulation of air around them, and still not be subject to freezing 

 and thawing. The Danvers Yellow is the best onion, and the j 

 Red Globe, or Wethersfield Red, the most profitable one grown. 



Onions are the most profitable crop that a farmer can raise, 

 and the quantity has been increased from three hundred to nine 

 hundred bushels per acre, and I think one thousand bushels or, 

 more can be grown by proper cultivation. Red onions are 

 now wholesaling at three dollars per barrel, and white ones 

 at four dollars per barrel. One year I sold my onions at one 

 dollar a bushel, and sent them to market in the fall beforej 

 housing. I have sold red onions as high as five dollars a bar 

 rel, and white ones at six dollars. There has been no time 



