my beds the fall before, turning the manure in about four 

 inches and so leaving them ready to smooth down and sow 

 the first day the ground was ready in the spring, and 

 though the season was eleven days behind at the time of 

 sowing yet I put in the first seed on the same day as the 

 year before, and by so doing saved most of that eleven days 

 on the growth of the crop which resulted in my getting a 

 paying, though not a highly profitable crop, instead of little 

 or none had 1 been ten days later getting the seed sowed. 

 I raised three, acres of onions the past season, getting a 

 crop of some 1000 to 1100 bushels in all, and proving quite 

 profitable. 



I will give the report for the best half acre, it being a 

 part of the same piece of land that made up the three- 

 quarters of an acre sowed the year before. Twenty 

 spreader loads of composted horse manure, muck and 

 nightsoil were spread on Nov. 8, 1886 and plowed in three 

 days later to the depth of five inches, using a Syracuse 

 chilled swivel plow, which is the neatest general purpose 

 plow, 1 know of. April 22, a dressing of ground bono and 

 unleached ashes was applied and worked in with a common 

 steel share harrow, and finally smoothed off with the 

 Meeker which left it in fine shape for sowing. Tlie cost of 

 smoothing this piece with the Meeker was but o0 cents, 

 while it cost me $13 to hand rake the same piece the year 

 before, and the Meeker leaves the best seed bed ; this little 

 item, together with the fact that the Meeker saved over $50 

 in smoothing down the three acres, will give an idea of the 

 value of good, machinery and tools on the farm. 1 will say 

 right here, that the Meeker should be run over the beds 

 both ways, and the last time should be at right angles to, 

 or across the way that the rows are to run so that the 

 slight mark left by it may not interfere with the track of 

 the seed sower and cause crooked rows. It is much easier 

 to run the sower across the track of any harrow, than to 

 run with it, and this is as true in planting corn as in sow- 

 ing onions. The sowing was done April 25 and 28, using 

 five and a half pounds of seed per acre, about a pound too 



