1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



431 



the use of a room in the house ; and this, in 

 •warm climates, should be on the north side, 

 and used exclusively for this purpose. I have 

 known many to use a room in the cellar as a 

 milk-room ; but very few cellars are at all 

 suitable. Most are filled with a great variety 

 of articles which never fail to infect the air." 

 Will not some of the excellent dairymen or 

 women among the readers of the Farmer, who 

 are satisfied that they have a well-planned 

 milk-room, give our Barnard correspondent 

 and "all other inquiring friends," the infor- 

 mation that he seeks, and they need, on this too 

 much neglected apartment of our farm build- 

 ings? 



IMPORTED STOCK. 



We learn by the Becord and Farmer that 

 Peter Le Clair of Winooski, Vt., has pur- 

 chased a number of superb imported cattle as 

 follows : one Ayrshire bull. Sir Walter Scott, 

 35 months old ; two 2-year-old Ayrshire heif- 

 ers ; one Ayrshire heifer, one year old ; one 

 Ayrshire calf, and a splendid Short-horn Dur- 

 ham bull, sired by the famous "Sweet Meat" 

 Durham bull. The mother and one of the 

 two-year-old heifers were purchased by Mr. 

 Stevenson, editor of the North British Agri- 

 culturist, of Edinburgh, out of the herd of the 

 late Mr. McFerlande Blairnaraid, one of the 

 most noted stock raisers in Scotland. Mr. 

 Stevenson pronounces the mother to be the 

 best blood in the west of Scotland, and says 

 she could not be matched anywhere. 



Within a few months past we have noticed 

 the purchase of several other lots of thorough- 

 bred cattle by the farmers of the rich grazing 

 country of the Cbamplain Valley, and believe 

 that.this section will soon become as distin- 

 guished for its cattle as it has long been for its 

 horses and sheep. Indeed, the stock from the 

 "Lake country" is already very popular with 

 the butchers at the Cambridge market. 



ONIONS AND ONION SEED. 

 In an account of the farm of Messrs. S. M. 

 & D. Wells, Weathersfield, Conn., by a cor- 

 respondent of the New York Tribune, we find 

 the following statement of their management 

 of the crop for which Weathersfield has a na- 

 tional reputation. 



Beside raising vegetables for home use and 

 green fodder for the cattle, these brothers grow 

 annually two or three acres of the best onion 



seed in the market. Half a ton to the acre is 

 the expected yield, and it brings from 75 cents 

 to $1.50 per pound. Great success has been 

 attained hy them in the culture of this crop. 

 In the first place the soil must be remarkably 

 rich, and the richer the better. If kept at the 

 proper height of fertility repeated crops may 

 be produced on the same ground. The Wells 

 Brothers continue to plant onions in a bed 

 which has been used for the same purpose for 

 at least eighty years, and they have found that 

 the finest and longest-keeping specimens come 

 from the oldest gardens. 



Their favorite patch is manured each season 

 at the rate of thirty cart-loads per acre. The 

 soil is not less than a foot in depth. Their 

 practice is, as soon as the frost is out, to use a 

 sub-soiler which goes two feet deep. A little 

 later to put in a plough which goes down about 

 four inches, then make the surface smooth and 

 mellow, and plant as early as possible in rows 

 from eighteen to twenty inches apart. For 

 this purpose the Weathersfield drill is recom- 

 mended for cheapness and efficiency. The 

 cultivation commences about three weeks after 

 the seed is sown, and one of the great princi- 

 ples is to keep the onions perfectly clean. 

 Generally three times weeding will be sufficient, 

 and the crop need not receive attention after 

 the tops shade the ground. The harvesting is 

 done in September, and the best way is to 

 make heaps of forty or tifty bushels each, cov- 

 ered with straw and leaves in the field for a 

 month or more. Six hundred bushels to the 

 acre is a large return, but under the most fa- 

 vorable circumstances 800 bushels can be pro- 

 duced. 



For next year's crop it is well to ridge the 

 ground in the fall, and split the ridges in the 

 spring. For new land the best plan is to be- 

 gin two years ahead and pave the way with 

 corn, and afterward a crop of potatoes. The 

 best manure is that obtained from cattle stalls. 

 Occasionally, if the young blades look pale, a 

 top-dressing of Phoenix guano may be profit- 

 ably applied. The surest crop is the red 

 Weathersfield, which is large, hardy and 

 strong. For raising seed the same richness of 

 land is required, and the same strict attention 

 to cultivation. The onions are set as early as 

 possible, in rows, forty inches apart, at the 

 rate of 250 bushels to the acre. They can 

 be freed from weeds by the use of a horse hoe. 

 When the tops are ripe enough they are 

 clipped off, dried under shelter, threshed out, 

 and run through an ordinary fanning mill. 



Chapped Hands. — Take three drachms of 

 camphor gum, three do. white beeswax, three 

 do. spermaceti, two ounces olive oil ; put them 

 together in a cup upon the stove where they 

 will melt slowly and form a white ointment in 

 a short time. Anoint your hands on going to 

 bed, put on a pair of old gloves, and they will 

 soon be well. 



