available nitrogen, and still more frequently, if
nitrogen and phosphoric acid were both used.

You may use what would be considered an excessive quantity of ordinary
stable-manure, and grow a large crop of cabbage; but still, if you plant
cabbage the next year, without manure of any kind, you will get a small
crop; but dress it with a manure containing the necessary amount of
nitrogen, and you will, so far as the supply of plant-food is concerned,
be likely to get a good crop.

In such circumstances, I think an application of 800 lbs. of nitrate of
soda per acre, costing, say $32, would be likely to afford a very
handsome profit.

For lettuce, in addition to well prepared rich land, I should sow
3 lbs. of superphosphate to each square rod, scattered in the rows
before drilling in the seed. It will favor the formation of fibrous
roots and stimulate the growth of the young plants.

In raising onions from seed, we require an abundance of rich,
well-rotted manure, clean land, and early sowing.

Onions are often raised year after year on the same land. That this
entails a great waste of manure, is highly probable, but it is not an
easy matter to get ordinary farm-land properly prepared for onions. It
needs to be clean and free from stones and rubbish of all kinds, and
when once it is in good condition, it is thought better to continue it
in onions, even though it may entail more or less loss of fertility.

"What do you mean," asked the Deacon, "by loss of manure?"

"Simply this," said I. "We use a far greater amount of plant-food in the
shape of manure than is removed by the crop of onions. And yet,
notwithstanding this fact, it is found, as a matter of experience, that
it is absolutely necessary, if we would raise a large and profitable
crop, to manure it every year."

A few experiments would throw much light on this matter. I should
expect, when land had been heavily dressed every year for a few years,
with stable-manure, and annually sown to onions, that 800 lbs. of
sulphate of ammonia, or of nitrate of soda, or 1,200 lbs. of Peruvian
guano would give as good a crop as 25 or 30 tons of manure. Or perhaps a
better plan would be to apply 10 or 15 loads of manure, and 600 lbs. of
guano, or 400 lbs. sulphate of ammonia.

CHAPTER XXXV.

MANURES FOR GARDENS AND ORCHARDS.

MANURE FOR MARKET-GARDENS.

The chief dependence of the market gardener must be on the stable-manure
which he can obtain from the c