12 ONION-RAISING. 



for five years by the use annually of from half a ton to a 

 ton of those fertilizers, which go under the name ' of " phos- 

 phates/' the analyses of which give about four per cent of 

 ammonia, three of potash, and seven of phosphoric acid. 

 Mr. Procter of Beverly has raised his crop for three years in 

 succession off the same piece of ground by the use of from 

 one to two hundred bushels of unleached wood-ashes, which 

 he applies in the fall. His land has considerable of clay in 

 its composition : that of Mr. Longfellow is somewhat the 

 same in character. Such examples of success in getting 

 good crops without the use of fertilizers whose composition 

 is founded on the analysis of the onion, proves, I believe, 

 that their soil was already well supplied, either in its natural 

 state or by the accumulations from former manuring, (for 

 phosphoric acid and potash in fairly good soils leach out to 

 but a trifling degree) with what the crop needed in addition 

 to what the fertilizers supplied. 



In my own practice I have raised my crop of from fifteen 

 to twenty acres annually for the past five years either on fer- 

 tilizers alone, or by applying half barn-manure and half fer- 

 tilizers. I consider it a good plan, where manure is used, to 

 apply it on the surface in the fall, running over once or twice 

 with the harrow. From a comparison of the crops grown 

 on the Bermuda Islands, (from whence most of our early 

 onions are brought) between those that are raised on ma- 

 nure and those on fertilizers, where the latter has been the 

 dependence for several years, there appears to be good 

 ground for the belief that the continual use of fertilizers is 

 there apt to produce some of the diseases to which the onion 

 is subject, which will be described farther on. Last season 

 (1887) a large proportion of the crop in Eastern New Eng- 

 land was badly injured by the form of blight known as 



