8 ONION-RAISING. 



muscle-mud, wood-ashes, and muck, are, either alone or m 

 compost, all excellent food for the onion. Old ground, to 

 maintain it in first-rate condition, should receive from eight 

 to ten cords of manure to the acre ; while new onion-ground, 

 to get it in first-rate condition, should receive from ten to 

 twelve cords of manure. When Peruvian guano was held 

 at about sixty dollars per ton, experienced farmers believed 

 that no purchased manure paid as well as this on old beds, 

 provided two applications were made, — one of about five 

 hundred pounds to the acre, to be raked in at the time of 

 planting ; and Ihe other, of like amount, to be applied broad- 

 cast when the onions began to bottom. Those who used 

 but one application at the time of sowing, were apt to see 

 surprising effects in a fine growth up to 'the period of half 

 maturity of the crop, and an equally surprising effect in but 

 little growth from this time through the remainder of the 

 season. Those who have used guano freely on their onion- 

 lands, in the vicinity of Philadelphia, assert that one singular 

 result is, that, after applying it for three years in succession, 

 the seed-onions, for the most part, fail to sprout in such soil, 

 and, when seed is planted, it makes but little growth after 

 vegetating. Pig-manure is held in high esteem by many 

 successful growers of onions in Southern New England. 

 Fish-guano, applied at the rate of a ton to the acre, has 

 given very fine crops. 



In the vicinity of large towns, where night-soil can be 

 readily obtained, no more efficient manure can be appKed 

 than a compost of this and muck that has been exposed to 

 a winter's frost, or good loam, in the proportion of three 

 parts muck or loam to one part night-soil. If, with this 

 compost, barn-manure and sea-manure are mixed, so much 

 the better ; for it is a rule for this as for other crops, that a 



