USE OF SALT AND ASHES. 197 



Mr. Ware. A soil with a little clay in it. Good corn 

 soil would be good land for onions. I have known very large 

 crops of onions grown on land that was clayey, that would 

 bake in a dry time. I do not recommend such land, because 

 it is very difficult to work it ; but I have known large crops 

 grown on such land. I will say here, that a crop of onions 

 varies all the way from 250 to. 1,000 bushels to the acre. 

 Five hundred bushels is a very good crop, I might say, a first- 

 class crop, but we do sometimes get 600, 700, 800, 900, and 

 even 1,000 bushels to the acre. 



Question. Would not lime have a good effect upon smut ? 



Mr. Ware. - I doubt it, but I cannot answer positively. 

 The better way is, if you have smut in a piece of land, to 

 change your onion field to another piece. If your laud is im- 

 pregnated with spores of the fungi, the smut will destroy your 

 whole crop, and you had better give it up, and take some 

 other land. 



Question. Is salt a good fertilizer for onions? 



Mr. Ware. Salt is a very valuable fertilizer for onions, 

 for carrots, for mangolds, and for cabbages. I do not know 

 that I should recommend it for other crops, especially. We 

 in Essex County use a great deal of salt manure in raising 

 onions, but I do not think that salt is so especially adapted as 

 a fertilizer to onions as to the three crops I have mentioned, — 

 carrots, cabbages, and mangolds. 



Question. How is it with wood ashes ? 



Mr. Ware. Wood ashes are good for anything, always, 

 every time ; the more the better. I will next consider the 

 carrot crop. I show you a sample of what we call the " Inter- 

 mediate." It is a hybrid between the short-horn and the long 

 orange carrots, very much better than either. The farmers 

 of Danvers and Marblehead have the credit of producing that 

 carrot. It was produced in both places about the same time, 

 probably from consultation and talking together, as farmers 

 do sometimes when they meet in the market-place. The 

 farmers of Danvers and Marblehead are wide-awake to obtain 

 new varieties, and you will find before we get through that 

 Marblehead has done a great deal towards producing many of 

 the very best of the standard vegetables in the United States. 

 This is a medium and fair sample of the Intermediate carrot. 



