The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-05-28
Agricultural Department
CONDUCTED BY FULTON s. WHITE

food to sustain There are specialists now in farming as well as in every other branch of business. and the farmer who fails to educate himself along these prac- tical matters cannot hope to compete with the specialist, who Is all the time experimenting and profiting by his e1- perlenee.
 saw a foreeful illustration of this only few days ago-in fact, see 1t every day. Tn one of the great onion grow ing sections of this country l found sew eral growers who give the subject. or onion growing their whole thought. lney think, they talk onion growing all the time, and then they act. They Know just how much and what kind of fertil- izer to use-when and how to use It. They know just how much water to use and when to use 1t, and so on through the whole list of onion growing requlre- ments And so by this education they have been able to clear from their efforts from S5O0 to 5000 per acre, while others who have not thought 1t worth while to studv so closely into the matter have made only from $10O to $500 per acre from their crops.
 Costs Just as Much.
 Now 1t costs these fellows who get this latter sum just as much for fertilizer just as much for seed, just as much for irrigation, just as much for labor-in fact their expenses in producing and market ing is Just as much as the grower who gets the former price for his crops. Now the question Is, can our farmers afford to ignore these plain practical facts? But some one may say: "Bst I am not grow ing onions or cabbage or truck of any kind, and why should this interest me?"
 The priciple is the same and holds good in all crops and in every farm effort. So I cannot impress too strongly upon our farmers the importance of securing good strong germinating seed and plant just enough of such seed to produce just what plants the soil is capable of growing and maturing-an allowance, of course, al- ways to be made for insects, bad weather, etc.
 But with a properly prepared seed bed, as mentioned in my last letter, econo- my can be used in seed, and the cost of seed greatly reduced. This comes in With | the soil economy, and taken together with numerous scientific methods which can be practiced on the farm, will all work together to swell the profits of the l farm crops
 Neat. Attractive Packages.
 But economy in soils and seed is only beginning of the savings that may be made in all farm operations The grow CTS who grow for shipment, the shippers and the buyers, have all found out how much easier it Is to sell goods put up in neat attractive packages than it is to sell from old bags. barrels, crates, etc. Only two years ago-in fact the practice is not yet entirely abandoned-the onions l grown in the section alluded to were ship ped in bags. These had to be cut open and the stock poured out for examina- ton, and generally there was more or 1 less bruised or rotten stock, and the goods were sold at low price. Now the leading shippers ship their onions in neat, attractive crates of fifty pounds each. These crates hold the onions firm. They reach the markets, often more than 100 miles away, in perfect condition and bring fancy top prices. As some of the growers said to me: These crates cost us IS cents to 20 cents each, laid down, and they carry only fifty pounds, while sacks that will carry 15O to 200 pounds cost from cents to 10 cents laid down: yet we make big money by using the crates, for when car of these crates is opened np in the foreign market and when they be- gin to set out these nice crates they are