Connecticut western news., 1880-11-10
FARM AND GARDEN.

ON1oN-eRowINd. Nd.-Onions will thrive in any light soil, but do best upon newly drained and reclaimed swamp land, with black vegetable soil. A rich, sandy loam is the next to be chosen. The best fertilizer is well-rotted horse manure night,soi is good for them {; Peruvian guano, superphosphate of lime, and plaster are also very bene- ficial. To produce good crop of good sized bulbs, the soil should be rich and this crop does better every succeeding year that it is grown on the same soil. The cause of onions growing to tops, (scullions,) ) in place of bulbs, is want of manure and perhaps poor seed ; because seed grown on poor soil, and borne by poor onions, will produce poor onions. The seed should be planted early in the spring. White onions are in greater de- mand for picking and cooking than red ones; they are equally prolific, but are not so hardy as the red. Onions are grown in rows foot apart and three inches apart in the rows. They may be grown to touch and crowd each other in the ground if the soil is good enough.
 BROOM M-CoRN. corn is grown the same as other corn. When the brush is fully formed, and while it is yet green and the seed beginning to form, it is bent down and left to gang so that it will keep straight. When it is fully ripe it is cut off about foot below the lowest branch of the brush; the stalks are broken down one row over another and crossed about two feet from the ground the brush is laid upon a sort of table thus formed until it is dry, when it is stored in barn until 1t is sold.
 SPREADING MANURE.-The usual man. her of putting out manure at this season in heaps, and leaving these until spring, is objectionable it is better to spread the manure at once rather than leave it in heaps. When in heaps the rain soaks through and saturates the ground, mak- ing these spots excessively rich, and wasting the strength of the manure. When it is spread, every portion of the ground receives its share and is enriched, and also protected by the shelter of the covering. This is the most economical manner of using manure at this season. It is mistake to suppose that anything is lost from the manure. Nothing is lost, but all the strength of the manure is washed into the soil and preserved, in fact, put where it will do the most good.
 APPL IoATIoN AND EFFECT OF PLASTER. A Vermont inquirer wishes to know if plaster on rye will be more beneficial if sown in fall than in spring; he as- sumes that it will be nefcial, but the time of so wing to obtain the best results is the point of doubt The best effects of plaster are always obtained when used on the young plant, and when sown on winter grain is best sown in the fall, immediately after or at the time of seed sowing. The effects of plaster or gypsum is not uniform on different soils. It gives no noticeable effects on wet lands, and yet it will produce no effect on dry lands until there is rain- fall to dissolve it, and there are some locations in which no benefit is seen on any variety of soil; in other localities its effect is wonderful on certain crops, and on others is of little use. The way in which plaster effects vegetation to pro, duce increased growth is a question which has received much discussion by farmers as we'll as by scientific writers and is even now hardly settled ques tion, but the practical farmer has learned certain facts in relation to its effects which he can leave for scientific men to settle. Carbonate of lime and sulphur of which it is composed, are elements O plant-food in certain degree, but hard | ly sufficient to produce the wonderful effect seen in some cases, and why it effects are greater on like soils in som 1 localities than in others is not easil, explained. Gypsum is an absorbent 0 ammonia, and its principal use is prob ably to fix that in the soil, or attract from the atmosphere, and thus furnisl
 the plant with this important element y. P. Root, Monroe O., ~. y.
 To CURE A SHEEPsKIN. sheepsli
 may be cured by first soaking it in wate
 to cleanse it, then scraping the fies
 side, afterward sprinkling it iberall
 while wet with equal parts of powdere
 alum and salt, then folding it and leay
 ing it for week; shake it out and ropes
 the dressing, when it may be stretche
 on frame and rubbed until it is dr
 with lump of chalk and piece (
 pumice-stone. It may be colored befo1
 it is dry finished by dipping it in an
 liquid dye; indigo for blue, madder fc
 red, guercitron bark or Persian berrie
 for yellow. Potato tops, cut when
 bloom and bruised and pressed to e1 tract the juice, gives Q good yellow colo to wool.
 |
 Falling Into a Bed of Snakes. Jacob TerWilliger. 0 farmer in tI