ROOT CROPS, ETC. 61 



of horse, hog, slaughter-house and cow manure, of about 

 equal parts ; and in the last week in March I spread the 

 manure over the entire lot and harrowed the ground, both 

 ways, with a cultivator harrow, which moved the ground 

 about three inches deep, and covered the manure. I then 

 picked off all the stone found upon the land, and removed 

 all sods that had been disturbed by the harrowing, and 

 placed them in rows about forty feet apart, and running from 

 north to south. These rows of sods and coarse manure, that 

 was unrotted, occupied about five feet in width, and in all 

 about one half of an acre of land. Upon these rows of 

 sodh and waste manure, I raised 1250 cabbages, 120 bushels 

 of tomatoes and 600 pounds of squashes. I raked the 

 ground thoroughly with wood and iron rakes, and leveled 

 the same, as nearly as could be, for the onion beds, and on 

 the 14th day of April, I sowed one acre of the ground to 

 onions, and in one week from that time, sowed one acre more, 

 and on the 25th day of April, I sowed the remainder, using 

 in all eighteen and one half pounds of seed. I was twelve 

 hours in sowing the seed on the three acres, in rows one foot 

 apart, with one of Harrington's seed sowers, which put the 

 seed in about one half an inch, and rolled the ground by 

 a roller attached to the same. I weeded the onions three 

 times • once in May, once in June, and once in July. The 

 first weeding was commenced as soon as the onions were of 

 sufficient height to be plainly seen. They were much the 

 best on the two acres where the manure was carried on to 

 the field in the spring, and each of these two acres yielded 

 at least one-third more onions than the one where the manure 

 was carried out in the fall, and lay in heaps over winter; 

 and the acre sowed first yielded the best of the three. I 

 hired all the labor done on the land except the sowing of 

 the onion seed, which I did myself. I paid for labor in the 

 months of April and May, $1.75 per day, and for the re- 

 mainder of the season, $1.50 per day, for men, and the same 



