the Champion; but the pea seldom amounts to 
much in hot weather. The Wonder I drop in 
the drill three or four inches apart (sometimes 
niore), and the Alpha and the Champion two 
or three inches apart; and make the drills not 
less than four inches deep. I am convinced 
that the jjea is usually sown much too thick, 
and too shallow. The Wonder should be 
grown in single rows, while the Alpha and the 
Champion may with advantage be grown in 
double rows six inches apart, with about three 
feet between the double rows. Here, again, 
keep the ground flat, mellow, and free from 
weeds. Brush is an unsightly thing at best, 
and might well be replaced by woven wire, 
such as is generally used for inclosing chicken 
yards. 
Of pole beans one is enough, and that the 
Lima. Set the poles first, make the soil rich 
with old manure, and wait for warm weather 
to pu in the beans. Nothing is gained here 
by haste, but often much is lost. 
People will eat cucumbers in spite of cholera 
morbus and the doctors; but as I have been 
requested to name one I must do so. Old gar¬ 
deners. who pride themselves on their frame 
cucumbers, such as Giant of Arnstadt, Gen. 
Grant, Walker’s Rambler, Prize Fighter, and 
what not, will probably be surprised when I 
state that I entirely agree with Mr. Downing 
that the little Early Russian is about the only 
cucumber that is fit to eat. In quality I have 
never seen anything to surpass it. I think it 
is quite the earliest cucumber known, forces 
kindly, is very productive, and the edible part 
equals that of many kinds more than twice its 
size. It is just the thing for the small garden. 
If you want another you may add the Im¬ 
proved White Spine, which is one of the best. 
Something may be gained in earliness by cov¬ 
ering the hill with glass boxes or hand lights, 
which are easily made. 
With the present extended list of tomatoes, 
it is no wonder people are puzzled to make a 
selection. If you choose the Acjno you will 
have one of the best and most useful in the 
list, and will really need uo other. It is quite 
early, ripens very evenly, is solid, pure-fla-. 
vored, and continues to bear late in the season. 
It is better to grow the tomato on a frame of 
some kind, or even use brash to keep the 
plants off the ground. Tomato plants can be 
bought cheaper than they can us tally be 
raised in a small way', and a few plants of a 
new kiud, such as Livingston’s Perfection or 
the Mayflower, may be added for trial with¬ 
out materially increasing the expense. The 
seeds, however, may be sown in a box placed 
in a sunny window', or even sown in the open 
air, in the absence of a frame. So, too, the 
egg plant and the pepper may be bought 
cheaply in pots, the best Egg Plant for our 
present purpose being the New York Im¬ 
proved. Of peppers, the Cayenne is grown 
for red pepper, and the Bird or Chili for pep¬ 
per sauce, and the Sweet Mountain will do 
for salad, pickling or mangoes. 
Lettuce is usually regarded as a luxury, but 
it is a luxury fairly entitled to a place in the 
small garden. This isa Springand Fall plant, 
and there is no use in trying to grow it in hot 
weather, when it soon runsto seed. Confined 
to one kind, I should grow the Tom Thumb, 
an early, small heading variety with a deli¬ 
cious, nutty flavor. Adding another, it w ould 
be the Boston Market or the Golden Stone 
Head, the latter a medium sized, solid let¬ 
tuce of fine flavor; and if a third, the compar¬ 
atively new American Gathering [For Sum¬ 
mer it is the best of all.—Eos.], which would 
carry us well into warm weather without run¬ 
ning to seed. The last does not make so solid 
a head as the preceding, but it is very tender, 
fine-flavored, and altogether a beautiful 
plant. I name these kinds not only because 
they are excellent, but also because they grow 
very kindly. Lettuce may be sown in a small 
bed and transplanted, or sown in drills where 
it is to remain and be thinned out. It is better 
to follow the latter plan with late sowing. 
The soil should be rich, and the plants thinned 
out as soon as they are large enough to be 
handled. 
People in the country are more fond of the 
radish than is generally supposed, and it must 
not, therefore, be overlooked. The French 
Breakfast Radish is the only one that will be 
needed in the sm.dl garden, except that the 
Scarlet Chinese may be sown in the Fall for 
use in Winter. It will keep as well as a tur¬ 
nip. 
I am getting beyond my limits, and the list 
is not yet exhausted. I hope, however, that 
the hints already given will be of some use to 
those for whom they are intended, and who. I 
know, are often puzzled what to select for the 
little garden which is to be a care as well as a 
pleasure to them during the Summer, 
GARDEN TALKS. 
WALDO F. BROWN. 
The Garden. Spot. 
“I don’t see how you manage to have such 
an early garden,” said the ’Squire to me the 
other day. “Your farm is a clay upland like 
mine, and yet, as I have passed your house in 
early Spring, I have seen the peas, lettuce and 
other early truck showing in the row before I 
could plow my garden.” 
“Jump out and hitch,” 6aid I, for he had 
stopped in the road iu front of my house, “and 
come and look at my garden, and I think you 
can easily see why mine is earlier than yours.’> 
“ 1 don’t see what you can show that is 
worth looking at in January,” said the ’Squire. 
“ That's just what 1 want to show you,” I 
answered. 
We walked round back of the house, where 
my garden is located, and stopped. 
“ I vum,” said the ’Squire; “ is thatthe way 
to fix it ?” 
My garden is eight rods long by six wide—a 
little over a fourth of an acre—and it is plowed 
in six lauds with all the loose earth cleaned 
out of the dead furrows; and as there are sev¬ 
eral inches of slope the long way, it is impos¬ 
sible for the water to stand on it at all. 
“Now,’Squire,” said I, “there are several 
points about this garden that I want you to 
notice:—First, it is well underd ained in addi¬ 
tion to the surface drainage you see. Second, 
it is well located. There is a strip of warm 
black land here. If I had located this garden 
five rods either north or south of where it is, 
it would be on a st'ff, cold clay. Thiid, it is 
protected from the north wind. I set out that 
ceda r hedge you see for that purpose. Lastly, 
you will find, if j'ou examine it, that the land 
is in a very lively condition, easy to work and 
quick to warm up, aud this condition has been 
brougnt about by fall-plowing, manuring and 
the addition of a little sand.” 
“But don’t this turn up cloddy when you 
plow’ it over again in the Spring ?” asked the 
’Squire. 
“We don’t plow it,” I answered. “ All we 
do is to stir the surface with a cultivator and 
harrow, and drag it, and it is as fine as 
meal.” 
“But what do you do with the dead fur¬ 
rows ?” asked the ’Squire. 
“ I leave the center one open, as it is, wher e 
the water will naturally run, and if, as is 
sometimes the c&se, we have a very heavy rain 
in the Spring or Summer, this will carry off 
the surplus water and prevent it from dam¬ 
aging th > garden. I plant potatoes in the oth¬ 
ers. Iu harrowing the}' get six inches of mel¬ 
low earth in the bottom, and I drop the seed 
on this and cover it with some coarse manure, 
and then when I cover this with earth from 
the sides the dead furrow is nearly full.” 
“ But it must have cost a good deal to get 
this spot fixed up so well,” said the ’Squire. 
“Not a greai deal,” I answered. “About 
five dollars for the underdrain; two days’ 
work with a hand and team hauling sand, and 
25 cedar trees at three cents apiece for the 
wind-break. Of course, I put a few dollars’ 
worth of manure on the garden every year, 
but that the crop always pays for.” 
“ I believe that you have a spot here that is 
naturally mellow and warm,” said the ’Squire. 
“Naturally warm after I drained it, and 
mellow after what I have done to it; but for 
some years I could not plow it six inches 
deep. It was a tough, waxy soil, and turned 
up very cloddy, and nothing helped this till I 
tried fall-plowing. I found that, after it was 
thoroughly dried out in the Summer and there 
would come a rain, I could put the plow 
down ten inches, and ever since that I have 
plowed in the Fall. Now, ’Squire,” said I, 
“ when I get ready to plant I want you to see 
the garden, and if you will promise to come I 
will send the boy over to let you know.” 
“ All right,” said he, “ I will come.” 
Butler Co., Ohio. 
GROWING ONIONS. THE DIFFERENT 
KINDS. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M.D. 
Judging from the complaints of others, as 
well as from my own experience, the art of 
onion growing requires some time, patience 
and ponsevorunce for its successful attain¬ 
ment. The hap hazard, happy- go-lucky style 
of gardening will not succeed with onions. 
There are a number of essentialpoints that can¬ 
not be neglected without severe loss, to which 
the man who wants to grow the onion must 
give strict heed before be can make it a profit¬ 
able crop. But for this very reason, because 
it is such an exacting crop, onions are, and 
always will be, a profitable crop to those who 
master the art. It is also a crop which gives 
comparatively large returns from small areas 
of land, so that it is well adapted to small 
farms. It is a crop easily harvested and 
shipped, and one that is sure of sale always at 
a fair, and often at a large profit. 
What I shall have to say in this article upon 
the subject of onion-growing is based upon ex¬ 
perience, both in the Ohio Valley and in New 
England. The differences of practice in the 
two localities are not very great. In New 
England, especially in the northern part, an 
early sort and early-planting are more essen¬ 
tial than in the Ohio Valley; in fact they are 
absolutely necessary, and for the same reason 
the number of varieties to be grown is much 
more limited. 
The first essential in or ion-growing is a good 
piece of ground. The soil should be light and 
free from large stones; it sho uld be naturally 
a good, deep soil, and well drained; it should 
be level, or with a very slight southward slope. 
A well-drained sand, rich in vegetable matter, 
has been found excellent for onions. Old pond 
bottoms, black and mucky, yet not pure peat, 
but with a liberal admixture of sandy soil, 
seem specially adapted for onion plots. But 
these are not to be found everywhere, and 
large crops of onions can always be grown 
upon level uplands where the other conditions 
are right. 
Except upon new land, or on those rare 
mucky ponl-bottoms, liberal fertilization is 
essential for this crop. Onions can perhaps be 
grown upon artificial fertilizers alone. But 
onion-growers do not seem to take with much 
confidence to that means of fertilization ex¬ 
clusively, and I confess that I hare never 
risked it. Nevertheless, I have great confi¬ 
dence in the use of ground raw bone and un¬ 
leached hard-wood ashes for the onion ground; 
but I use these in addition to well-rotted barn¬ 
yard compost at the rate of eight or ten cords 
to the acre, reckoning three good two-horse 
loads to the cord. 1 have also used a dressing 
of 300 pounds of sulphate of ammonia to the 
acre, sown upon the surface after the onions 
were up, nud hoed in. This was for the pur¬ 
pose of hurrying up a crop that for some rea¬ 
son (probably cool weather), grew very slowly, 
and the result seemed to confirm the saying of 
Liebig, “ammonia is time.” 
The onion-plot should receive its dressing of 
dung and be plowed in the Fall. Mr. Gregory 
says, “ plow not over five Riches deep,” but in 
a dry locality, or a dry soil, I would plow 
deeper and manure accordingly. If the ground 
is too deep and too moist, the onions will be 
late in maturing, and this, where the seasons 
are short, means practically the loss of a great 
part of the crop. It is recommended to cross¬ 
plow in the Bpring, but that practice is not 
good in all soils. I find it makes my seed-bed 
too light, causing the seed to come up slowly 
and uuevenly in a dry Spring. Instead of this 
I sow upon the furrows 1,000 pounds of pure, 
fine-ground raw bone aud 50 bushels of un- 
leached bard-wood ashes to the acre, and 
harrow thoroughly with a harrow set thick 
with sharp teeth made of %-inch round steel. 
The ground is then carefully raked. When 
this is done, the manure aud labor bill has 
reached about if 100 for one acre, aud this is to 
be repeated every year. The crop will im¬ 
prove year by year for a number of years, say 
six or seven, but after that it may be well to 
change to a new spot. 
The seed is to be sown at the rate of 4, 
or 3 pounds to the acre, according as the rows 
are 14, 15 or 16 inches apart. The better the 
condition of the land the closer the rows may 
lie made. Good seed is essential, and there is 
much more poorJfliun good seed in the market. 
Therefore, buy of dealers who are well known 
and of established reputation, and do not 
grumble at the price, even if high, as good 
seed often necessarily is. There is hardly a 
more uncertain crop than onion seed, and the 
best is the cheapest. Two-dollar seed against 
six-dollar seed (a difference of $15 per acre in 
price), will often shorten the crop of mer¬ 
chantable onions 200 bushels. A good seed- 
sower, of which there arc several in the mar¬ 
ket, should be used for puttingin the seed, and 
if the land is level, the machine may be al¬ 
lowed to cover it. But if the land slopes more 
than a trifle, cover by band with the back of a 
rake, leaving the ground a little the highest 
over the row. If you neglect this, heavy 
rains, before the seeds are well up, and even 
for some time afterwards, will run off in the 
rows, taking out soil, seed and young plants, 
causing a very serious loss. 
After onions are up they must be hoed, 
(using a wheel hoe), and this should be re¬ 
peated once a week. As soon as weeds show 
themselves in the rows the piece must be gone 
over on hands and knees, and this, too, must 
be repeated as often as the weeds appear. 
When the young onions are about three or 
four inches high, you will begin to notice some 
of the plants wilted and lying upon the 
ground. This means the onion maggot. Dig 
up every such plant, with the dirt around it, 
at once. Put the plant and the dirt with it in 
a pail, and either burn or bury a foot deep, 
without delay. After the maggot begins, the 
onion patch must be gone over once a day, and 
the maggotty plants thus removed and dis¬ 
posed of, until the maggot season is over, 
which will be several weeks. This comprises 
all the work of onion-growing. After that 
comes harvesting and marketing. When the 
onion has nearly completed its growth the tops 
fall over. When most of the piece reaches 
this stage harvesting commences. Three or 
four rows are thrown together aud left on the 
ground to dry, being turned over with a rake 
occasionally, and especially after a rain. 
When thoroughly dry they are topped, and 
spread rather thinly under cover on open 
floors to cure. There they may be left until 
sold, or until freezing weather, when, if to be 
stored, they must be kept dry, and at a low, 
even temperature, probably a little below 
rather than above freezing. If well ripened, 
well cured, and maintained at the proper tem¬ 
perature, onions usually keep well; yet, if you 
cau get 80 cents or more a bushel for them in 
the Fall, let them go, at least until you have 
become an expert in the art of wintering 
them. 
In regard to varieties, the kind must be de¬ 
termined by the market. In most parts of 
New' England the Yellow Danvers is the stan¬ 
dard variety, and no red sort will sell as well. 
Further south the large red Wethersfield is a 
standard and popular sort. Around Montreal 
an earlier red variety is grown A popular 
New' York kind is the Southport White Gle be, 
w hich Mr. Gregory advises to be cured under 
cover, in order to preserve its white ness, which 
is an essential element of its market value. 
Where the early Yellow Dauvers does uotsuc¬ 
ceed on account of the short seasons, it is 
hardly worth while to attempt commercial 
onion-growing, yet in such localities the Early 
Red Globe may sometimes be made profitable. 
I will not undertake to say anything in infla¬ 
tion to onion-growing in the extreme South. 
In the]border States at one time it was thought 
that onions could only be grown from sets, 
but before I left that section (in 1861), I had 
raised them successfully from black seed, and 
now it is quite commonly practiced. The 
new large Italian kinds succeed in the South. 
- -*■ 
I will state, as a matter of curiosity, that 
the Portulaca may be grown from cuttings. 
Being an animal, and so easily grown from 
seed, there may bo nothing useful iu this ; 
still, somebody may find among the double 
forms some particular kind which he would 
like to perpetuate iu this way, and it will do 
him uo harm to know' that he cau do it, and 
have it in bloom in the Winter. [W'e have 
seen Portulacas grow, bloom aud mature seeds 
after the plants had been pulled up aud 
thrown upon the rubbish, ale. Has Ilortioola 
ever observed that the color of the flower as 
well as its variegatiou (when striped) can be 
determined quite accurately by the color, 
striatious etc., of the stems of the plant ? 
Eds.] 
I scarcely ever take up a periodical de¬ 
voted to scientific pursuits, that 1 do not 
see something about flowers being endowed 
with color, etc., to attract the attention of 
insects, and for no other purpose whatever. 
It did not used to be so. Now will not some¬ 
body spare the time to discover some manner 
of flower that has been endowed with beauty 
and sweetness by the good Father for the 
grutttication and enjoyment of his chief 
handiwork, man ? This insect business may 
be all very w T ell, but it seems to be rather 
overdone, and bolstered up by too many as¬ 
sumptions. 
While on a brief visit at a friend’s recently 
I bad an opportunity of seeing how taste¬ 
fully a lady can dispose of a couple of plants 
under very unfavorable conditions. The 
house is heated by a hot-air furnace, aud 
that usually means a hot, dry air unfavorable 
to healthy plant growth. The windows of 
the sitting-room are shaded by a broad piazza 
and sunshine can only find its way to the 
floor. Iuoueofthe windows, elevated on a 
low stool, was placed a Calla Lily iu a large 
pot with a deep saucer under it. The soil in 
the pot was covered with Wandering Jew-, 
(Tradescantial, which bad run over and down 
the sides of the pot, aud spread over the car¬ 
pet for several feet on each side, presenting an 
example of real cai'pet bedding as novel as it 
w 7 as pleasing, and in better taste than much 
of the so-called “ carpet bedding” seen in the 
open air. There is in this a hint of the pos¬ 
sibilities of w indow- gardening under more 
favorable conditions, aud in a new direction. 
The Calla was not in flower, and was not 
likely to flower in such an atmosphere ; but 
there is always something so noble aud grace¬ 
ful in the form of this plant that one might 
well grow it though it never bloomed. 
Among the newer vegetables the Perfect 
Gem Squash may be favorably noticed. It 
is productive, of excellent quality, and a good 
keeper, but of small size. There is an unreas¬ 
oning prejudice against small vegetables of 
this class for market purposes. The larger 
varieties are mostly coarse and ill-flavored, 
and only fit for cattle, almost the only excep¬ 
tion being the Cheese Pumpkin, (and this, 
after all, is only medium Bized) which is 
scarcely surpassed for pies, and is equally 
