The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1899-01-03

the row. Going twice insures close
work by machine on each side and less
hand work. If you have a ssraddle
wheel machine set the tool on either
side to come as near as you can trust
yourself at walk without disturbing
the plants. This writer prefers The
single wheel machine
NEXT THE HAND WORK.
With the hand tools and a coarse bran
sack folded as a pad and tied over each
knee, start in where the wheel hoe be-
gan and clean the ground in the row
of every vestige OF a weed and scrape
over every square inch that the wheel
hoe did not cleen. There may not be
weed IN sight, but two or three may
be under the square inch neglected
ready to come up the next morning
after you have passed and clean cul
ture is the rule for good profit in onion
culture. Repeat this often. Every
time a shower causes little crust to
form, go over With the wheel hoes. As
often as a weed can be found go over
with the hand weeders. The Levy 70 "
will yield least onions ard Of poorest
quality.
WHEN THE ONIONS ARE RIPE,
which will be July or August, they
may be raked loose from their roots
with the above named rakes and lie in
win6rows of about FIVE onion rows
each and dry out.
In order to hasten the ripening and
help the bulbs in some cases a light
barrel is rolled over the tops in June
or July, say when the earliest healthy
plants begin to ripen. This checks top
growth and may change the character
of growth from large top and poor
onion to q marketable onion.
When the tops have withered and
the bulbs are quite dry twis5 off the
dry tops and haul to shelter. This
should be done in dry weather, and it
may be we'll to say there should be
little or no rain on the crop after raAed
up in Windrows.
Store the crop in a cool dry place
ready to be put on the market. If
early and you are in the East. you
muat
WATCH MARKET REPORTS CLOSELY
aud ship at the earliest moment you
gee prices will pay. 8aip North or
South, wherever you caA get uoost net
money per buahel Ia order &c "a thjs
yoJl need in addition to THE PRoGREsa
I'VE FARMER the best reliable market
reports from New Orleans round the
Gulf and Atlantic seaboard &c Boston.
Subscribe for those newspapers
which give this information You
may need Northern and Southern
paper to get it
One of the first things to do will be
to secure little treatise on gardening,
or onion culture. These can be had
through your paper publishers. As to
LAND AND MANUREs.
Almost every writer will warn
against animal manure because of
weeds. You should kno " whether you
feed weedy hay or grain, and be your
own judge whether you can use your
own stable manure. We should use
ours aud do use it in garden. Then
add probably only acid phosphate and
kainir, or muriate of potash. Or bet
ter, il you have a large amount of
wood ashes at hand use these. Onions
Iowa potash.
Without stable manure as high as
1 OCO TO 2, 900 pounds of complete chem
ical manure has been recommended
and used. This to contain about z
pounds potash, pounds phosphoric
acid and 4 pounds nitrogen per hun
dred weight. On rich land use less
nitrogen. But only high manuring
with
CLEAN CULTURE
will pay we'll. This is intensive farm
ing. FRANK E EMERY.