1S92 



(ji.HANixtis IN 1{i:k ci'i/ii'i;!;. 



741 



I'll, KAMNCJs. ami may lu' lit'lp ot iters as well as 

 luo. We liave not hatl any rain siiu-e tht> fore 

 part of .Inly, and ev(>ry tliinir is dried up. or 

 ii<>Hrly so. F. \V. Moats. 



HriinersburK. C).. Sept. (>. 



[FritMul M.. yours is a probiem tliat iscomin<i 

 up now a ixreat many times. If you depend on 

 wind yon will need a very large resei'voii' to 

 hold the supply when tiie wind does not blow; 

 and even for yoin- two acres I would suggest a 

 tank liolding "from iiKio to ^.'(KK) barrels. Now. if 

 tliere is always running water in that river I 

 would suggest, insti^ad of a windmill, a tide 

 water-w heel. This would always be available, 

 and only a very small reservoir, or none at all. 

 would be needed. I have seen such wat<>r- 

 wlieels for elevating water: but I do not think 

 that I ever heard of iheir being offered for sale.] 



I'UKVKXTING WASH ON THE HIIJ-SIDES, ETC. 



^[r. Rixit: — On page 7()4, Sept. 15th, you have 

 given a nice picture of a land-leveler and two 

 nice rolling hills nicely laid out to drain the 

 water by circles: but you have made one little 

 mistake, and you may as well have it right as 

 not. while you are at it. Remember, there 

 never were two hills unless there was a hollow 

 or depression t)etween them: and down these 

 sags, or hollows, is where the water should run. 

 But if there is not cnougli of these hollows run- 

 ning up the hill to carry off the water without 

 leading it, say. over two hundred yards, each 

 way from highest point, as you indicate, then 

 you may and sliouUl run those straight ditches 

 up the hill: but not *^//f of them entirely up to 

 the top. as one or two are enough to go (ill the 

 way up — say one on each side. J. W. Day. 



Crystal Springs. Miss., Sept. 24. 



[Thanks again, friend Day. Since you men- 

 tion it, I do remember that your waste water 

 was finally delivered into the natural water- 

 course, or gully, between the hills, but I did 

 not think to mention it. On our ground, where 

 we have been doing the work it is on a hill so 

 large that we have, in place of a hill, only slop- 

 ing ground: and wherever there is a depression 

 I have found it convenient to locate these 

 waste-water ditches straight down the hill: 

 neither did I intend, in our illustrations, that 

 these waste ditches should <tll go to the sum- 

 mit of the hill. The idea and plan of working 

 is somewliat complicated at best, and the dia- 

 gram which you refer to was more to give a 

 general idea of the work to be done than to 

 show just /iojr it should be done in practice. I 

 suppose none of the up-and-down ditches need 

 run clear to the summit of the hill. During the 

 tremendous rains of the past season, however, a 

 large quantity of water would accumulate on a 

 very small area, even on a hilltop.] 



CORKECTEI) AN1> I>EFT BKHIND BY ONE OF THE 



WOMEN-FOEK.S IX THE MATTF:|{ OF 



ONION Cri-TUKE. 



I was surprised to read in Gleanings, Sept. 

 1, that the Egyptian onion did not produce 

 bulbs with you. I sent for a quart of your 

 Egyptian onion-sets last fall, and planted them 

 in poor sandy ground, covering them with rot- 

 ten buckwheat straw which was left on in the 

 spring— no other fertilizer but the water I had 

 to carry out of the stable after a hard rain, 

 which I put between the rows. They will av- 

 erage the size of turkey-eggs. The strip of 

 paper just meets around one of the largest after 

 the outside was peeled off. 



Lochiel, Wis. Mrs. Meea Hael. 



[Well, my good friend, I am rejoiced to find 

 that I do not even yet know all about the 

 Egyptian onion. The strip of paper you send 



us is just 8 iiu'lies long. We have succeeded 

 some seasons in getting tolerable bulbs from 

 the Egyi)tian onions when given plenty of room 

 on very rich ground: but we have ntn'er yet 

 succeeded in getting any so large as yours. VVe 

 shall liave to change or modify our description 

 of the Egyptian.] 



(iETTlNG ONION-SETS TO STAND WINTEII W HEN 

 PLANTED IN TIIE FALL. 



Friend Root: — Perliaps my experience in win- 

 tering over onion-sets may be of a little benefit. 

 I have been raising Silver King onions for the 

 past four years. They wer(( a perfect success 

 three years, and on(> crou was a complete; fail- 

 ure, i sow the se(?d early in the spring, quite 

 thickly for the .sets, and I do not set them out 

 in the fall until aliout two weeks before the 

 ground freezes. The object is, to have them 

 get thoroughly rooted, and have very little top 

 before winter. One year I set in September, and 

 lost the crop. Mulching is of no benefit on my 

 soil — a sandy loam. I .shall try the Pearl onion 

 this fall, as tiiis class of onions brings double 

 the price of any other in the market. 



Eugene Davis. 



Grand Rapids, Mich., Aug. 24, 1892. 



[Many thanks, friend Davis. In order to test 

 this matter, last season we planted the Ameri- 

 can Pearl sets in the middle or early part of 

 September, then some more two weeks later, and 

 so on until only a short time before the ground 

 froze up. Those planted earliest did altogether 

 the best. They took root and grew, and seem- 

 ed to go down into the ground far enough to 

 stand the frost. We are very glad indeed to 

 get items of experience from the originator of 

 the Grand Rapids lettuce, now so well and 

 widely known almost over the whole woi'ld.] 



STEAM HOT-BEDS. 



We are putting in 15.000 feet of double-thick 

 glass this year for cut-t^ower growing. That 

 makes my plant 36.000 feet. We expect to heat 

 one-fourth acre of hotbed on A. 1. Root's plan 

 of steam. Geo. M. Kei.logg. 



Pleasant Hill, Mo. 



Notes of Travel 



from a. i. root. 



TEMI'E, aiuzona. 

 When we arrived at the station, the principal 

 object that took my attention was an Indian 

 pacing up and down the platform, with a tuft 

 of feathers on his head, like the pictures we see 

 in the geographies and other books— a veritable 

 painted and feather-decked Indian. I confess 

 that I looked up to him with considerable 

 respect. He was quite a good-sized, tall, well- 

 developed man, and I concluded that he must be 

 a chief or something of that sort, as he, with a 

 sort of indifferent air. seemed to look down 

 upon the rest of mankind who hadn't any nice 

 feathers like his own. When I began to inquire 

 of my brother and his family about this ■■ big 

 Injun "and his feathers, I noticed that they 

 seemed to smile among themselves at my ex- 

 alted conception of the "red man of the forest;" 

 but as we did not think aliki', the subject was 

 dropped. Hut they smiled in a sort of self- 

 complacent way that rather vexed me just a 

 trifle: but, with very jjleasant good nature, they 

 told me to keep on studying the habits of these 

 dusky friends of mine. Well, about the first 

 thing I saw when I looked outdoors, after I 

 had begun to feel at home, was this same tuft 

 of feathers bobbing about over a pile of garbage 



