142 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Mat, 
Growing Carrots— Mulching. 
• ! 
No intelligent farmer doubts that the carrot is 
one of the most valuable roots that can be raised 
for stock. For horses, to alternate with oats or 
ground-feed, they are excellent, being nourishing 
and at the same time keeping the system free 
and in good order. Indeed, for horses which do 
only the lightest kind of work in Winter, carrots 
and potatoes and hay make a very good diet. 
When Spring opens, let one mess of oats per 
day be substituted for one of carrots or pota- 
toes. They are excellent food for milch cows 
and oxen.— The cultivation of a crop of car- 
rots is a simple process. A rich, loamy soil 
is preferable to strong, clayey ground. It should 
be thoroughly enriched, using old manure if it 
is applied the same year. A better way is to 
manure heavily the year before. Break up the 
ground thoroughly with plow or spade. Let this 
be no surface work. Thrust down the plow- 
share to the beam, or the spade its whole depth. 
This is the only way to avoid " fingers and toes," 
and to get long, large, well-formed roots. Har- 
row the ground until smooth and thoroughly 
pulverized; plant h inch deep in drills, two 
or two-and-a-half feet apart, for field tillage, and 
eighteen inches for garden culture. This part of 
the work is greatly expedited by using a seed 
sowing machine. About two pounds of seed 
per acre will be needed. From the middle of 
May to the first of June, is the right time to put 
in the main crop. For early use, the best vari- 
ety is the Early Horn. For late Winter, the 
Long Orange is a great favorite. The Altring- 
ham is thought to be hardly inferior to the last. 
As soon as the plants are up, go through the 
rows, and thin out to from four to six inch- 
es apart. Keep the cultivator or hoe in motion, 
to suppress all w T eeds, and to keep the ground 
light and loose. This will also greatly help on 
the vigor and growth of the plants. 
A writer at Lexington, Mich., adopted a good 
plan which he thus describes : " The carrots, 
thinned and hoed, grew finely, and I now be- 
gan to think what to do to keep the weeds from 
springing up again. I remembered having read 
in the American Agriculturist something about 
mulching apple trees and newly planted shrubs; 
also I remembered, that last Slimmer I had 
some potatoes in my garden — the smallest spind- 
ling tops }'ou ever saw — and having some spare 
stable manure in the Spring, I took it, after 
hoeing my potatoes, and covered the ground be- 
tween the drills, and the potatoes improved rap- 
idly and turned out a fair crop; so I now took 
stable manure and spread between the rows of 
my carrots. It did not dry up, as the dews and 
rain kept it moist, and the carrot tops soon cov- 
ered it; with every shower the strength was 
carried to the roots of the carrots, and it was 
farewell to weeds." 
In the Fall, as soon as the leaves begin to turn 
yellow, they may be taken up, cutting off the 
tops an inch above the crown, and storing away 
in sand in a cool cellar or a root-house. The 
tops are of value for feeding. Our correspond- 
ent says: "About the middle of October I be- 
gan to think, what shall I do with this heavy 
growth of tops ? Having had some experience 
in their worth as food for horses and cows, I 
took a scythe and mowed, from day to day, and 
gave them to two colts, feeding three times a day 
all they would eat up clean : the tops lasted be- 
tween three and four weeks. Having but 3-16ths 
of an acre, this may seem fabulous, but it is true, 
and the colts improved much in flesh. I came 
to the conclusion, that as to quantity and qual- 
ity, carrot tops exceeded any other green feed 
I was acquainted with." For Spring feeding, 
the roots may be in pits out of doors, covering 
the heap with six inches of straw set up end- 
wise, and a foot or eighteen inches of soil laid 
on smooth so as to shed rain. The same wri- 
ter gives the following expenses and profit on 
three-sixteenths of an acre devoted to carrots : 
To plowing and raking ground $1 00 
To seed and planting 88 
To twice hoeing fi2 
To thinning 63 
To mulching 1 00 
To cutting lops 1 00 
To digging and putting In cellar 3 50 
Total cost (4^ cents per bushel) $8 63 
CONTRA. 
By 192 bushels carrots at 25 cents $48 00 
By 3 weeks' feed for two horses on carrot 
tops at 37% cents each 2 25— $50 25 
Profit on 3-16ths of an acre $41 62 
Although this might not be reached in field 
culture on a large scale, it shows conclusively 
that it will pay abundantly to add an acre or 
two of carrots to the Summer crops. 
—• •»•» -» ■ 
Onion Culture— Hints to Beginners. 
— ♦ — 
The unusually high market price of onions 
during the past season, will doubtless stimulate 
many who have had no experience, to go into 
their culture. No one should undertake to grow 
them without making up his mind to give the 
crop all the attention it requires. It is gener- 
ally a paying crop, but one also which requires 
a great deal of labor, and unless this can be 
given, and just at the time needed, the attempt 
will result in disappointment. To grow onions 
successfully, requires a certain amount of expe- 
rience, and we would not advise any one who 
is without this, to attempt the culture upon a 
large scale. In the first place the greatest care 
should be taken in the selection of the seed. 
This should only be obtained from reliable 
sources. Unless the seed has been saved from 
well grown onions, it will produce poor results, 
for no after-care will produce a good crop. The 
Large Red, Oval Red and Yellow Danvers are 
all good keepers. The 'White Portugal brings a 
good price but does not keep well for Winter 
use. Three or four pounds of seed are required 
for an acre. Onions require a good strong soil. 
If possible, laud should be selected that has been 
previously used for some hoed and manured 
crop ; if not rich it should be made so by a lib- 
eral supply of manure. Well-rotted hog or 
barn-yard manure at the rate of 20 or 30 
loads to the acre is used, and deeply plowed in 
and then a top-dressing of 150 or 200 bushels of 
ashes is harrowed in. The soil must be thor- 
oughly pulverized by the harrow, and after- 
ward carefully raked with a large garden rake. 
It will be found to facilitate working, to lay off 
the ground in beds of about a rod in width. 
The sowing should be clone as soon as the soil 
is dry enough to work, the earlier the better. 
The seed is most readily sown with a drill, 
in rows 12 to 13 inches apart, covering J inch 
deep. In absence of a drill, mark furrows with 
a hand marker, and sow as evenly as possible 
by hand, and let a boy follow to cover with the 
feet. After the seed is sown, the ground should 
be rolled with a hand roller. As soon as the 
onions are up enough to allow the rows to be. 
seen, an onion hoe should be run between the 
rows, lightly stirring the soil, and a few days 
after the rows must be weeded. This is the 
most tiresome part of the work, and is usually 
done by boys, wdio crawl along on their knees 
astride of the row, and remove every weed from 
among the onions. The weeds have to be con- 
stantly fought, and the hoeing and weeding must 
be repeated as often as they show themselves, 
for the success of the crop depends in good 
part upon thorough weeding. Whew the seed 
is properly sown, but little thinning will be 
needed, but where they stand too thick, they 
should be thinned to about three inches in the 
row. Very full details will be found in the 
Onion pamphlet, published at the office of the 
American Agriculturist, See Advertisement, 
Sugar from the Beet, 
The question whether sugar can be produced 
from the beet root in this country as in France, 
is in a fair way of being definitely settled. 
Hitherto, after many costly experiments, it has 
been supposed that owing to the difference of 
climate, soil, or other undetermined causes, the 
attempt would be fruitless. We learn from the 
Valley Farmer, that during the past year Mr. 
Belcher, a large sugar refiner in the West, has 
been testing the matter again on land contiguous 
to the Illinois Central Rail Road, with seeds of 
various kinds of beets procured from Europe. 
His success is reported as very encouraging. 
The Agricultural Societies of Illinois and Iowa, 
aided by the 111. Cent. R. R. Co., are lending 
their aid for further trials. An arrangement 
has been concluded with a company of Germans 
to establish a refinery on the farm of W. H. 
Osborn, President of the R. R. Co., at Chats- 
worth, 111., and fifteen hundred acres are to be 
cultivated with the beet the coming season. 
In France the production of sugar from the 
beet has become of national importance, amount- 
ing in a single year to nearly 150,000 tons. 
The present is a most favorable time for the 
initiation of the enterprise in this country. It 
is quite likely that the above movement gave 
rise to the specious advertisement of the " New 
Oriental Sugar Plant" noticed in the Agri- 
culturist last month. 
■ ■ i ^m 9^ i » 
Late Sowing of Clover. 
"J. H. A.," Mifflin Co., Pa., sends to the 
American, Agriculturist the following suggestions: 
"In this section our best success with clover has 
been when it has been sown after the ground 
had become quite well settled in Spring, and 
the weather w T arm enough to germinate seed 
quickly. We believe that the sooner any seed 
germinates after being placed in the soil, the 
more certain will be its growth. It is known that 
many kinds of seeds can not remain more than 
a few days in the ground during weather unfavor- 
able to germination, without losing their vital- 
ity. The seed of clover is so small, and the germ 
so minute, that however unfavorable the effect of 
too early sowing upon either, it is almost suro 
to escape the notice of the farmer; otherwise I 
think sowing this seed in March, in this latitude 
at least, would now be almost abandoned. 
We may, in some measure, judge of the injury 
done to the seed of young clover by a month 
or six weeks of weather unfavorable to the ger- 
mination or growth, by considering the natural 
requirements of the plants. I believe no field 
crop is more benefited than this, by warm show- 
ers and sunshine. Even after the first season's 
growth, and being quite well rooted, it requires 
wdiat we call the best growing weather to bring 
it to perfection — and under such circumstances 
it is a plant of rapid growth. Clover during a 
cool Summer always looks yellow and sickly, 
and is sure to be a short crop. From this, maj 
not the farmer conclude that the alternate freez 
