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NEW YORK, MARCH 25, 1882 
PRICE FIVE CENTS, 
$2,00 PER YEAR, 
[Entered according to Act nf Congress, In the year 1882, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.) 
grown sets perfect in form, and when matured 
they ripen well and go through the Winter 
without loss, except the usual shrinkage. The 
growing of sets under the most favorable cir¬ 
cumstances is a precarious business, as they 
require constant care and attention from the 
time of plauting until marketed, and the in¬ 
dustry involves a considerable outlay for seed, 
manure and labor—at least 4250 per acre to 
start with, at present price of seed. 
tual, besides improving the appearance of the 
field. 
Seed should be covered a quarter of an inch 
deep—deeper than this produces long or bottle- 
shaped instead of the round bulbs which are so 
desirable, and l find that following the drill 
with a roller four inches in width and about 
40 pounds in weight, causes the seed to germin¬ 
ate much more quickly. I have the rows 14 
inches apart from center to center, leaving a 
space of about eleven inches to cultivate be¬ 
tween the rows; seed required, from 50 to 00 
pounds per acre. In the cultivation I use 
Allen’s double wheel hoe, which cleans up both 
sides of a row at on.' passage, throwing the 
earth from the plants, which should always be 
done with the onion, as it w r ants to grow on 
the surface to perfect its best form. Twice a 
week is not too often to cultivate, for then one 
avoids the trouble of fighting the weeds and 
only cultivates the soil. Once during the sea¬ 
son—about June 1st—I employ boys to go 
through the onions, two row's at a time, and 
take out the few weeds and grass that have 
grown in the row' among the ouions, and by 
this time these have become large enough to 
pull easily without injury to the sets. Ten 
boys will effectually weed one acre per day 
with one man to oversee them. One man with 
wheel hoe will cultivate one-aud-a half acre 
per day (10 hours) the season through. 
From July 1st to 10th, I begin to harvest; 
by this tune the tops have turned yellow and 
begin to fall down. Here I make the wheel 
hoe useful again by taking the shanks of two 
hoes and rivetiug to them a plate of steel, four 
inches wide and six inches long, which would 
appear in the frame of the hoe like the letter 
U, this is inclined in front to gripe the earth 
when pushed against it. I run this blade under 
the row of sets and cut off the roots, lift the 
sets and soil which fall behind the machine in 
a loose pile, rendering the operation of gather¬ 
ing vei'y easy. Instead of pulling, all that is 
needed is to take them by the tops by hand¬ 
fuls, shake out the dirt and lay them in 
windrows, two rows in one, tops all one way. 
By this method last year in a field of ten acres, 
four men averaged oue acre per day, with cue 
man to w T ork the hoe. The old method would 
have required 20 men to accomplish as much. 
I let thesets lie in windrows until the tops cure 
sufficiently to store without heating, which re¬ 
quires from four to five days, aceordiug to the 
weather. I then store them in the drying 
house. My building is 54 by 20, w’ith 15 feet 
floriatlHiTai 
weatherboarding, to give perfect draft from 
top to bottom to dry out any moisture that 
may arise from the bulk of sets confined. Bets 
are as susceptible to changes of the weather as 
salt, and require air every clear dry day, 
while the building should be closed tightly in 
damp weather. 
IB ... When preparing 
/1 i the sets for the mar- 
/'rk kefc we run them out 
f ™ of the l uilding by 
/''JJf I W raeans °f a chute, on 
to floors laid, to dry 
in the sun. When 
SETS.-FIG. 90. thoroughly dry the 
tops and chaff will 
crumble by slightly rubbing with the hands or 
rake; then to clear off the chaff we run them 
through an ordinary fan mill wnth riddle to 
assort them In various sixes. Those which will 
pass through a three quarter-inch riddle are 
considered sets, and the larger ones are called 
pickling onions so extensively used in chow- 
chow pickles. One pound of seed with me will 
produce .'com three to four bushels of sets. I 
shall sow this season 000 pounds of seed on 13 
acres of ground. Theo. F. Baker. 
Cumberland Co., N. J. 
Beside the water margin behold the clump 
of Day Lilies so familiar and so appropriate. 
Although Day Lilies belong to the flora of the 
Old World—temperate Europe and Asia— 
they have been for so long a time cultivated 
here in country gardens, that they have run 
wild even in this, the New World, and Dr. Asa 
Gray has included the old yellow' and the cop¬ 
per colored ones in his “ Manual of Botany/ 
as being common on road-sides where they 
have escaped from gardens. Of course, Day 
Lilies ure common plants, but they are ex¬ 
ceedingly hardy and thrifty and accommodate 
themselves to such a variety of adverse cir¬ 
cumstances, and they bloom so copiously aud 
long during the early and midsummer season, 
and ure so showy when in bloom and servicea¬ 
ble as cut flowers, that they cannot well be 
spared from couutry gardens. After the flow¬ 
er spikes have been cut and put into vases filled 
with water, the buds will open successively as 
they would have done were they still affixed 
to the mother plant, except that they may be 
smaller in form and paler in color. Further¬ 
more, the Day Lily is one of those plants 
which, when planted, will maintain its own; 
in fact, in waste and neglected places, disre¬ 
garded and uneared for, it naturalizes its -If 
with the utmost complacency, and is charm¬ 
ingly effective in the society of Tiger, Canada 
and Swamp Lilies, Blue Flags and the like. 
But every day plants so valuable could not 
escape the cultivator’s attention, and now we 
have, in addition to the old fashioned forms, 
double flowering varieties, likewise kinds with 
variegated leaves. 
And there have also been added a small, 
slender leaved species from Siberia, which 
has bright yellow flowers and is very pretty; 
a species called disticha whose flowers are yel¬ 
lowish on the outside and reddish within, 
from Eastern Asia; the Kwanso Day Tidy, 
reddish-orange, single and double, plain and 
variegated-leaved, and some others. 
The Queen Onion. 
This is said to be the best keeper of tho 
foreign onions. It is early but small. It is a 
white-skinned variety and of mild flavor. 
Ourcutisre dra%vn from Sutton & Sons (Lon¬ 
don) catalogue. It is advertised in most of 
our American catalogues. 
GROWING ONIONS. 
Day Lilies. After Robinson’s Wild 
Garden.— Fig. 94. 
My soil is a sandy loam with a clay subsoil, 
and I plow my land for the seed-bed the Fall 
previous. In the Spring I apply, broadcast, 
some reliable fertilizer contaiuiug a large per 
cent, of potash, never less than half a ton per 
acre, and plow down. Foor ground is recom¬ 
mended by some for sets, but I find, that, as 
iu the case of other crops, the better the soil 
the better the sets and the more can be raised 
per acre. Don't be afraid about getting your 
ground too rich, harrow and cross-harrow, 
theu plank. The plank is 10 feet long, with 
tongue attached aud is pulled by two bones, 
the driver standing on the plank which is 
drawn at an angle of 45 degrees, and pulver¬ 
izes all clods instead of burying them in mel 
low dirt, as a roller would, and fills all uneven 
places and horse footprint*, leaving the land 
a smooth, level surface like a floor, und ready 
to receive the seed. 1 use Comstock’s drill, 
which 1 have improved to suit my mind by 
widening the plow to three-oad-a-half inches 
iustead of one inch, as manufactured, and 
placing inside two tin shelves, the last one 
being grooved and resembling a fan half-closed, 
one inch at top and three-and a half at bottom, 
which distributes the seed over a surface of 
tbree-and-a-half iuches instead, of oue inch. 
By this means I gain the advantage of sowing 
from 5U to (W pounds of seed per acre instead 
of 30, as recommended by seedsmen. Thus 
also each seed has an equal chance to develop 
a perfect set instead of being smothered by 
sowing too thick in a tine, in which case some 
die or never form bulbs, while those on the 
outride grow too large. The seed coverer is 
attached to the frame and held in position by 
two springs. The drill is set and closed by an 
iron rod running down the bundles connecting 
w ith the dial plate with a spring, thus enabling 
tiie operator to stop and turn without the loss 
of auy seed, which always occurred before, 
wheu the dial plate was worked with a hook. 
The drill sows, covers, rolls and maiks out at 
the same operation. If pains are taken to get 
the first row straight, the others must follow, 
making after cultivation easy aud more eifec- 
COL. f. d. cdrtis, 
Onions will do well on loamy soil, but land 
w'hich is mucky and well drained is specially 
adapted to this crop. From this fact muck 
well composted with wood ashes is the best 
manure for onions. Hen manure or guano is 
the best condensed fertilizer, aud these should 
always be well mixed with dry earth and 
sowed broadcast and harrowed in before the 
seed is plauted. Only a few bushels should ba 
put upon an acre—not to exceed six. In the 
absence of muck, manure approaching the 
nearest to vegetable mold is most desirable. 
Wood ashes will be found to be beneficial and 
may be used at the rate of 50 bushels per acre. 
After the onions are up it is well to sow 
plaster broadcast at the rate of 500 pouuds to 
the acre, as this will draw moisture and at tLe 
same time aid the plants in growth. There is 
no danger of making the ground for onions 
too rich, and unless it is brought to a high 
condition of fertility the crop will be poor. 
Ground upon which potatoes or roots have 
b-'en grown a year previous is the best adapted 
for onious. In any event, the land should be 
free from clods, roots, and lumps. On this 
account sod and corn ground are not good. 
The ground should be thoroughly prepared 
and the 3eed put in as early iu the Spring as 
the land can be worked. It is best to plant 
the seed dry, although if it is soaked a few 
days beforehand, it will germinate quicker, 
provided the laud coutiuues moist, but if it 
should be dry, soaking the seed would be in¬ 
jurious, hence it is always safest to sow the 
seed dry. 
Four pounds of seed are sufficient for an 
acre in drills one foot apart, using the best 
drills to be obtained; the seed should be cover¬ 
ed three-quarters of tin inch deep according to 
condition of soil. As soon ns the plants can 
be seen, the ground should be goue over with 
a cultivator adapted to the wot k, of which 
there ure several kinds, drawn by hand, or 
with u push hoe cutting up the weeds aud 
stirring the surface of the ground. This work 
should be repeated as often as necessary, six 
to eight times, perhaps in order to keep the 
GROWING ONION SETS IN NEW 
JERSEY. 
Onion sets are the product of seed sown 
very thick in Spring and harvested in J uly, and 
not the refuse bulbs of a crop of large onions, 
often seen aud sold iu the market for sets. As 
the early crops in the North and almost the 
entire crop of onions in the South are raised 
from sets grown the previous year, the raising 
of sets iu certain localities is quite a business; 
Although most seeds mature perfectly in auy 
part of the country, yet some localities possess 
advantages or peculiarities which lead to cer¬ 
tain crops as specialties, and while Weathers- 
field and other New England towns, as well as 
the prairies of the West are world-renowned 
for the quality of thoir onion seed for pro¬ 
ducing onions from seed in one year, they can¬ 
not grow’ seed tbut will grow a good quality 
of sets with me; but if sown thick enough to 
grow sets they will produce what is termed 
scullions among the onion fraternity, or an 
ouiou with a long still - neck hut w ithout bulb 
or form. During my experience, of ten years 
iugrowiugseta l have proved to my satisfaction 
and to that of those for whom 1 grew, that 
seed grown beyond Pennsylvania or south of 
Delaware, would invariably result in a major¬ 
ity of scullions, which w ould uever ripen or 
die down to harvest, or if luirvebted t hev would 
The Queen.—Fi 95. 
posts, which admits of 12 false floors, one foot 
apart; these are laid as tilled, beginning at 
bottom, filling the first floor not over 10 inches 
deep, then placing rests and laying the second 
floor, and so on to the top. A building of these 
dimensions will require 12,900 feet of flooring 
and will hold 1,200 bushels of sets. Two sides 
of the building should be doors iustead of 
