340 



How THE FARM PAYS. 



nation of a green crop with the onions is a necessity, as it is well 

 known that the onion is one of the very few crops that does not seem 

 benefited by alternating; but it is claimed that it gives almost entire 

 freedom from weeds, as, after a crop of millet which has been cut 

 before its seed ripens, few troublesome weeds will come up the next 

 year. 



MANURES. 



I have always held the opinion that when well rotted stable manure, 

 whether from horses or cows, can be procured, at a cost not exceeding 

 $3 per ton delivered on the ground, it is cheaper and better than any 

 kind of concentrated fertilizer. It should be plowed in at the 

 rate of thirty tons per acre. The concentrated fertilizers in the 



WHITE PORTUGAL ONION. 



YELLOW DANVERS ONION. 



market are now so numerous, that it would be invidious to specify 

 particular brands. We ourselves, except in using occasionally the 

 "Blood and Bone Fertilizer," which we have proved to be excellent, 

 use only pure Ground Bone and Peruvian Guano, which, for onions, 

 we prefer to mix together in equal parts, sowing it on the land after 

 plowing, at the rate of at least one ton per acre of the mixture (when 

 no stable manure has been used), after sowing to be harrowed in, as 

 described in " Preparing the Ground." 



One of the most valuable manures for the onion crop are the 

 droppings from the chicken or pigeon house, which, when mixed 

 with twice their weight of lime, coal or wood ashes, so as to disinte- 



