97 



This certifies that I have measured the piece of land on 

 which was raised four hundred and twelve bushels of beets 

 by Frederick A. Russell, and it contained one-half acre. 



N. D. Peert. 



STATEMENT CONCERNING A CROP OF ONIONS RAISED BY 

 JOHN H. GEORGE, OF METHUEN. 



The crop of 1892 was potatoes. The crop of 1893 was 

 onions. The soil is peat meadow, ploughed in the fall of 

 1893, at which time there was a light dressing of coarse 

 stable manure ploughed in. In the spring of '94 it was 

 harrowed and brushed ; 1000 lbs. of the Stockbridge onion 

 manure was applied, brushed in, and the seed (Danvers 

 Yellow Globe Onion) was sown. There were two pounds 

 of seed put on the half-acre. There was put on one side 

 of the piece one cord of as good manure as I had, for the 

 purpose of testing the value of the fertilizer. The manure 

 was put on at the rate of 15 cords per acre. The fertil- 

 izer was applied at the rate of one ton per acre. The fer- 

 tilizer onions were by far the best as to quantity and qual- 

 ity. The maggots worked the most where the manure 

 was ; there were also double the weeds there. 



I tried raising onions according to book theory, that is, 

 by thinning them to four inches apart, and diminished the 

 yield of my crop by at least 25 bushels by so doing, 

 although I thinned but a small portion of them. 



They were hoed five times, weeded three times, and left 

 to mature. They cost the least to weed of any crop that 

 I ever raised. They were not thoroughly weeded at all, as 

 onion raisers usually weed them, that is, by stirring with 

 the fingers the soil around them, but just gone through 

 with and the scattering weeds pulled out. 



They were cut out with a wheel hoe, picked up into 

 crates at once, and stored in the onion house. The yield 

 was 448 1-2 bushels of the finest onions I ever saw. They 



