err. portions of Georgia and Alabama, and that cigar tobacco, of the Cuban type, may be profitably cultivated in the extreme southern portions of those States; while if we judge of the types of tobacco which may be raised in Mississippi from those which are produced in contiguons States, both the bright and the dark heavy varieties may be grown there, varying according to soil. ONIONS-HOW TO RAISE THEM. BY JOHN KLEINFELDER, Ross, O. SOIL. A good crop of onions can be grown on any soil which will produce a full crop of corn, unless it be a stiff clay, very light sand or gravel. To produce a full crop, the soil must be very rich. We prefer a piece of ground that has been cultivated with hoed crops, kept clean of weeds, and well manured for two years previous, because, if a sufficient quantity of manure to raise an ordinary soil to a proper degree of fertility is applied at once it is likely to make the onions soft. MANURE. There is no crop where the quality of the manure used is of greater importance than in the cultivation of onions. It should be of the best quality, and be well fermented and forked over at least twice during the previous summer to kill weedseed. Unless treated in this manner manure will produce a great many weeds, requiring double the amount of labor to keep them down. PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. In the fall cultivate in from thirty to forty loads of well-rotted manure to the acre, and then plow about six inches deep. Avoid tramping on it during the winter, and as early as possible in the spring cultivate and harrow, making the surface as fine as possible. A drag can be used to good advantage, as it crushes clods and levels up the ground. If the ground is trashy it will pay, before planting, to hand-rake with a steel rake, as it is very essential that the ground should be free of trash, which will greatly facilitate the after cultivation. PLANTING. Onions can be set as soon as the ground can be got in order from the first of February to the middle of April. Onions set in February should be well set in the ground and covered over with earth to prevent the frost from raising them to the surface. Mark out your ground with a rake or marker made of a piece of timber 4x4, with five teeth made of wood, steel, or iron twelve inches apart, and made pointed, so as to make a narrow drill. Start your first rows straight and then use the last row for a mark, running the outside tooth in it and you will mark four rows at a time. Then set your sets four inches apart in the row. We use sixteen-foot fencing boards to set on, as it leaves the ground much smoother than to tramp it. CULTIVATION. As soon as the onions have started to grow and can be seen the full length of the row, give them a shallow hoeing between the rows. In a few days give them the second hoeing, this time close up to the plants, and a thorough weeding with a hand-weeder. The weeder must get down on his knees astride the row stirring the earth around the plants in order to destroy any weeds that have just started and can not be seen. After this they will require two more hoeings ten days or two weeks apart. We work our onions with a double-wheel hoe similar to a double plow, which is a labor-saving machine, as one man will do the work of four men with common hoes. VARIETIES. The Yellow Strasburg, or Yellow Dutch, one of the oldest varieties, is raised principally from sets, does well in Southern Ohio, and is raised almost exclusively to all others. Yellow Danvers, another good variety, do equally well, but are principally grown farther north, and from seed. Large onions can not be grown from the seed here, as the seasons are too short, for as soon as hot weather sets in, about the first of July, our onions stop growing. Five hundred bushels to the acre is a good crop, although 600 bushels is not an unusual crop. LABOR, ETC. It requires twelve bushels of sets to set one acre to onions. We sort our sets (which can be done with proper sieves), and set each size by themselves, making three sizes. We do this for the following reasons: First. The large sets can be worked one week earlier than the smaller ones. Second. They will grow more uniform, as a small set between two larger ones will always be behind and never make a large onion. Third. By setting the small sets to themselves they will grow as large onions as large sets. One man can set one acre in twelve days; hoe them four times in twelve days; weed them in four days; dig them in four days, and top them in five days. As soon as the tops are cut, all the crop should be gathered by pulling and throwing them in winrows. If the weather is fine they will need no attention while curing, but if it is not they will need to be stirred. When the tops are perfectly dry you may cut them off or store them without topping. ONION SEED CULTURE. By JOHN KLEINFELDER, Ross, O. To grow first-class seed, the bulbs must be set out in the fall before cold weather sets in, so as to get them well rooted to give them an early start in the spring, in order to have the seed mature before hot weather sets in. When set out in the spring, the seed does not mature until hot weather sets in, and is apt to be light and of poor quality. To grow good seed, select nothing but the finest bulbs. Special care should be taken as to color and shape; a flat onion of a bright yellow color being preferable. The cultivator can not expect remunerative crops unless he bestows careful attention on the selection of seed. 1 PREPARATION. In the fall, about October 1st, select a rich piece of ground, start by plowing two furrows on one side of your land six or eight inches deep, then set a row of onions in the side of your last furrow, twelveinches apart and five inches deep. Plow three more furrows, covering up the first, and then set another, and so on. About December 1st, cover them over with manure, which answers both as a fertilizer and protection to the onions during severe weather. In the spring, give them a hoeing, stir the earth well around the plants. The middles can be marked with a horse cultivator. As soon as the tops are eight or ten inches high, give them another working, after which they will need no further attention than to keep down the weeds. As soon as the seed ripens, cut off the seed heads, put them in sacks and hang up to dry, or spread them on a floor. The seed should be hulled during dry, cold weather in winter, and can best be done by placing the seed in a strong sack and pounding it with a flail or club, frequently turning the sack, then take out seed and rub well between the hands, after which, clean on a wind-mill or in the open air on a windy day. Before sowing the seed it should be subjected to a water test. This should be done on a bright, sunny day. Fill a bucket or a tub full of water and pour in your seed. All the good seed will sink to the bottom. All seeds that will float should be skimmed off and rejected. Pour off the water and spread the seed out on a board or canvas to dry. PREPARATION FOR RAISING SETS. The surface of the ground should be made as fine as possible, and if the seed is to be sown by hand, a board should be used to avoid tramping the ground. A piece of land having been well manured the previous year is best adapted for the raising of se's, providing it was kept clear of weed-seed, as it is very essential to have clean ground in order to raise sets. Sow the seed in the spring as soon as settled weather sets in; sow in drills about one inch wide and cover about one-half inch deep; sow the seed thick so the onions will not grow too large. The most accurate way of sowing the seed is to use a seed-drill. The drills can be made six, eight or ten inches apart, as desired. As soon as the onions are up so they can be seen the full length of the row, give them a hoeing, just skimming the ground. After this hoe them about once a week until about the first of June. As soon as the tops become dead, pull them and dry them a day or two in the sun, when they will be ready to store. Store them in a dry place not over six inches deep, and stir them once or twice a week for two or three weeks. During the winter they may be stored much thicker, and during severe cold weather should be covered. Freezing does not necessarily injure them, but they should not be disturbed when frozen. LIVE STOCK, DAIRYING AND FEEDING. BUTTER DAIRYING. BY MRS. N. H. TILLMAN, ARCANUM, O. The dairy interest concerns all classes of society from the producer to the consumer, and has an indirect influence on all industries. It calls for the transfer of over 500 millions of dollars annually, which shows it is one of the most important industries of our land, and if there can be an influence brought to bear on the producing classes which shall result in supplying the market with a better article of butter and cheese, the financial condition of the producing classes will be bettered, and mankind helped in general. I will confine myself more particularly to butter-making, and leave cheese-making to some one else more competent to handle the subject. Butter-making is an art as old as history, and the manipulations of butter-making to-day by the majority of butter-makers, are not on as scientific principles as when it was done ages ago, when our foremothers churned in sewed up skins suspended by a limb near by. By moving it back and forth it was made butter by concussion, the most modern improved and approved plan of churning; so you see with all our improved methods and all our advancement, we are but very little in advance of our foremothers. Butter-making is especially adapted to the farm, and I believe the major part of our gilt-edged butter will be made in home dairies on the farm, and I hope to be able to prove to you that strictlv gilt-edged butter can only be made in home dairies; that butter which comes from our creameries takes a secondary place, and if farmers' wives will supply themselves with all the necessary modern improvements for buttermaking, such as our husbands have to run the farm, they can make a better article of butter than is made in the creameries; but to do this and to get them all to see it, a great many prejudices will have to be overcome; but right here, in speaking of a better article of butter, the average farmer's wife confronts me with, "I can make as good butter as you or any body else"-and it is no use to argue the question with her-when in many cases she has not the first requisite for making a number one butter, adhering to the old plan of raising cream in crocks with wooden lids, churning it sour, in an old fashioned dash-churn, with the globules of butter all cut to pieces and so saturated with butter milk that it can never all be removed from the broken globules, and the consequence is it only keeps a few days before it begins to turn rancid. If I can stimulate any of my sisters to the production of a better article of butter, I feel that I have not labored in vain. The first requisite to begin with, is to procure a better breed of cows. It is an established fact that different breeds of cows have different values for dairying, and the breed that I prefer, and that I believe is preferred by the majority of butter-makers, is the Jersey. Butter-making Jerseys are known by their pedigrees-certain families producing by actual test more than others; but whether you can get the pedigreed Jersey or not, get the best you can to begin with, for right here success or failure will follow. This is the rock on which my bark split, for I thought when I had the shorthorn general-purpose cow, I had as good a breed of butter-cows as any one, until I began to investigate it. I soon found my butter-cow must go for something better, and that I must supply myself with a breed that gave a higher per cent. of cream. The cow whose milk is only eight or ten per cent. cream will have to give place and be substituted for the one that produces milk that will test from eighteen to twenty-five per cent. cream. In some instances as high as thirty-five per cent. has been obtained, but these are rare instances. There is also a great difference in the separation of the cream from the milk, as the cream from some families separates much easier than others. One cow may give as good milk as another, but the separation may not be so complete, that the one may be of less value than the other for butter purposes; and then there are different qualities of cream, so that the same bulk from one cow may not produce near as much butter as the same amount from another. Do not then be satisfied until you have the right cow to begin with. Now, having the right cow, which I think is the Jersey, you are on the right road to success, and the next requisite is HEALTHY, WELL FED COWS. Cows fed on bright, well-cured clover hay, and a slop given them composed of corn-meal, ground oats and bran, with the addition of a little oil-meal, and occasionally a bundle of bright, well-cured corn fodder, will be a ration sufficient to produce a milk that, if rightly handled, will make a gilt-edged butter good enough for a king. Salt should be convenient so the cow can help herself at will. The next requisite is CLEANLINESS IN THE STABLE. As you all know, milk is very susceptible to odors, and the strictest care in regard to cleanliness in the stable and every other department is very necessary. The milking should be done quietly and quickly, and by a neat, tidy person, then removed at once to the creamer, for if allowed to become quiet the cream commences to rise and if then disturbed it hinders the process of separation. So you see the necessity of attending to business even in straining the milk. In my Cooley creamer we leave it open long enough for all impurities and odors in the milk to escape before putting on the lide. In about five minutes we put the lids on the cans and submerge it entirely under the cold water, then close down the lid of the creamer, when the temperature of the milk is rapidly reduced to forty-five or fifty degrees, as indicated by the thermometer in the front part of the creamer. The milk is hermetically sealed, as the can lids project over and beyond the cans an inch on all sides, and down about one and one-half inches below the top of the cans, the pressure of the air in the top of the cans keeping the water out, and if there are any impurities or cdors left in the milk it gathers in moisture on the underside of the lid, which has four grooves, and is a little conically shaped, which precipitates all impurities and moisture over and beyond the can, out in the water. The water should be changed morning and evening to keep it pure. We do not use ice, consequently it takes the cream longer to rise. We skim every twenty-four hours; had we ice we could skim every twelve hours. The milk is drawn off through a faucet at the bottom, and having a glass in the *front near the bottom, as soon as the color line shows the cream at the bottom of the glass, another vessel is substituted, and thus we avoid having any milk whatever in the cream, and all possibility of having white streaks in the butter. Now we have |