The Canadian Horticultukisi. 57 



of early cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, celery and tomatoes, ami in either case, we 

 believe, that in well-constructed greenhouses not only is work better done, bu^ 

 that the saving in labor in three years will more than offset the greater cost of 

 the greenhouses. 



Lands, in some gardening localities, have become actually surfeited with 

 manure, and for this reason vegetables, such as cabbage, lettuce, and celery, do 

 not now average as good as those grown where land is cheap enough to allow 

 one-third to be i)ut down annually with some grass and clover crop. I believe 

 that, in a garden of fifteen acres, if one-third is laid down to grass each year, and 

 the balance kept under the plow, the gross receijHs will be greater, and the pro- 

 fits more than if the whole fifteen acres were under tillage ; for less labor will be 

 required, and manure tells better on sod land than on land under tillage. 



I can tell you nothing new on the subject of manure, except that the use of 

 dried peat moss, now being used in the cities for bedding, is likely to be of 

 great value to the market gardener, if it can* only be had in sufficient quantities- 

 We have had it in use in our own stables for about a year and find it not only 

 more economical than straw for bedding, but its absorbing qualities make it of 

 great value for fertilizing purposes. We can buy ordinary straw manure in our 

 vicinity for $1 per team load ; but we are buying all we can get from stables 

 where the moss is used at $2 per ton, but is yet quite scarce. -Petkr Hender- 

 son, a/^ Farmers' Institute, Jamaica. N. Y. 



Manure for Onions. — For twenty years an onion specialist in Fairview. 

 Pa., has raised his onions upon an acre of ground adjoining his home : he placed 

 but little faith in commercial fertilizers, for the one vear previous to this one, that 

 he used proved disastrous to his crop, and seemed to fairly burn the onions 

 to death : but that year was an excessively wet season and the substance was 

 literally washed out of the ground. But last spring, when he plowed his land 

 again for onions, he made up his mind to give the fertilizers one more trial, as 

 the soil was becoming impoverished bv continual cropj)ing. He accordingly 

 procured four hundred pounds of phosphate and spread it over the ground before 

 sowing his seed, and the result was an enormous croj) of onions, equal in quan- 

 tity and quality to twenty years ago. Another man in an adjoining town, plowed 

 up a clover field and sowed it to onion sets, for his grain and clover always 

 lodged there and he would loose a good share of them, being near a building 

 and under a high state of cultivation. The crop was harvested lately, and 

 yielded at the rate of 450 bushels of sets to the acre. This shows beginners 

 that old ground re(|uires phosphate, and new ground clover sod. 



