the United States in 1860 was $6,654,045,007, and the value of the lumber improvements would be $3,322,522,000. This has been cut from our soil and put into these permanent improvements, and pays taxes.

Now, the vast majority of these improvements have been made within the last thirty years, (probably twenty;) and as within that time, probably, old houses, barns and fences have been replaced sufficient to make the whole amount new; during that period, on farms alone, there has been cut and used annually, and changed into permanent tax-paying property, $101,070,000 worth of forest. These improvements continually are growing old and falling to decay. But this is a single item. "A good barn will build a good house," is an adage that thousands of farmers have proved true; the protection of crops, the defence of stock, the shelter of vehicles and implements, have saved thousands of dollars to many a farmer. How much of the income tax paid by the farmers of the nation represents the wood in their utensils, vehicles, barns, stables and fences, outside of the value assessed directly upon them.

But pass a moment to manufactures. The cotton manufactures are the second in the United States, as reported in the census for 1860, the products being $115,137,926; the value of flour and grist mill products being the first, and amounting to $223,144,369. Let us now take lumber, and contrast it with these. There was of sawed and planed lumber in 1860, $96,000,000 worth. The products of the grist-mills furnished occupation to 19,000 bakers, besides being used in every household supplied by the baker. The products from the cotton-mills, besides the private use in families, in part, gave employment to 90,000 seamstresses and 102,000 tailors and tailoresses. But as one half the labor of these was expended on woollen, silk, or linen fabrics, it gave direct employment to about 96,000 men and women. Now, the direct tax on the produced timber was almost as great as on the cotton goods, while in the line of furnishing employment to others in the simple trade of carpentry alone, employing only men, it gave business to 242,958, or nearly three times as many as worked in cotton, and thirteen times as many as worked in flour and meal.

The iron interest and the machinery interest (often requiring much lumber) are immense, but the pig iron in 1860 amounted to only $19,487,790, and the bar and other rolled iron to $22,248,796, making a total of $41,736,586. The machinery made in this country in 1860 amounted in value to $47,118,550, and of sewing machines to $5,605,345, making a total of iron produced and machinery manufactured in 1860 of $94,460,481-a million and a half dollars less than the raw lumber of the country which had passed through the saw-mill.

I have before said that there are sixty-six trades in whole or in part dependent upon wood as their material for manufacturing. What they can earn or do earn cannot be known; but two points will help us approximate. There were 29,223 cabinet-makers, who produced $22,701,304 worth of ware; also 3,510 piano-makers, musical-instrument makers and organ-builders, who made $5,791,807 worth of musical instruments. If we should average these two trades, we should certainly set our mark too high, as one is low, and the other unusually high, demanding skilled labor. The production per capita above was, in the first $771, in the other $1,651. Should we estimate the production of those 476,623 artisans in wood at $1,000 each, we should have nearly $500,000,000 per annum, of which scarcely a trifle, excepting the two items above of about $28,000,000, appears in any column of the census. This is additional to the making of the lumber itself. From all incomes over $600 the United States exacts a tax.

United States buildings, capitols and public buildings belonging to the respective States, and all educational institutions and county property, and generally churches, are exempted from taxation, and therefore are of no value under this particular point of revenue, although, if they are of such vast importance, subserve such necessary and useful purposes, and are paid for by the money of

the people generally, their wood pays its tribute to the maintenance of government, the dispensing of justice, and the diffusion of religious truth and influence through the nation.

We are told that the manufacturers of the United States, together with the mines and fisheries, produced in the United States in 1860, $1,900,000,000.

Of all the cotton and woollen factories, of furnaces, rolling mills, flour and grist mills, machine shops, furniture, implement and cooper-shops, of all the manufacturing establishments of every description, what proportion of the value invested and helping to produce this vast amount was wood, and paid its tax, first as real estate, then in incomes of proprietors?

We have spoken of dwellings, then of manufacturing establishments. We come now to commercial and mercantile houses. Of all the buildings used for banking and insurance purposes, for offices, for public halls, for theatres and museums, for all kinds of business, and for all kinds of storage, what per cent. of all the values of these buildings is wood, and, as asked before, pays a double tax? But when we come to one other point, we meet timber under a new aspect. In 1860 the ships of the United States had an aggregate tonnage of 5,539,812 tons, and were worth, at $40 per ton, $221,592,480. In 1860 there were a few iron steamers, but the great mass.of American vessels were built wholly of wood. When we remember that it is through their instrumentality that those articles are brought which yield such a national income to the government, surely wood stands forth, demanding again the acknowledgment of its value and power which thoughtless men have never given to it.

But there is an interest growing up among us which is destined, in time, to control every other of a mere pecuniary kind; it is the railroad power and railroad contributions; and from a few facts connected with these (I have early alluded to one or two in part) may be seen how here, as well as elsewhere, wood pays its tribute to the United States treasury.

The report of the engineer of the State of New York on the railroads of that State, for 1864, is in my hand, with the latest and most reliable information. By it I find that to fence forty-nine miles of the Atlantic railroad in the lumber portion of that State cost $35,680 70, or $728 a mile. At the same rate the fences for the 51,114 miles, either operating or being constructed in 1862, would amount to $37,208,992, a value greater than the entire value of the New York Central railroad. Thirty-four railroads in the State of New York paid $2,311,213 for bridges, on an aggregate of 2,798 miles of roads, which is equivalent to $26 for each mile of road. Assuming one-half of that amount for wooden bridges, there would be required in the United States $42,817,144 for wooden railroad bridges.

The superstructure of the 2,798 miles of New York railroads cost $22,253 72; taking one-eighth for the cost of sleepers, gives about $1,000 per mile; for the railroads of 1862, it makes about $50,000,000 in this item.

Passenger and freight stations and buildings cost $1,519 for each mile of road; assume one-half for wood, $760 per mile; for the United States, $38,846,000. The wood value in the engine and car houses, &c, in the United States is $5.961,607. The wood value in the freight and passenger cars in 1862 was, in Like manner, $67,810,480. We thus see, upon a very low estimation, that the probable amount of wood in the railroads built and building in the United States in 1862, was $215,664,223, amounting to nearly one-fifth of all the expense-earth, stone, brick, and iron.

When we come to estimate the cost of keeping up these roads, we see again how much the income derived from this great interest is dependent upon wood. The repairing for 1864 of roadway and superstructure of the New York railways cost, not including iron, $4,747,523. What part of this was, strictly peaking, wood itself, it is difficult to answer. A vast amount was doubtless expended in ballasting the road; but when a sleeper is broken and decayed, the

more complete and perfect the roadway, the more time, labor and expense required to dig out a new bed to insert the sleeper, and to properly adjust, fasten, and ram it. If we assign one-third of the expense above for sleepers, and placing them properly, then this item for New York alone, in 1864, was $1,582,301, and for the United States $30,063,719. We also, in brief, make other estimates from the same table:

Repairs of railroad buildings for New York $750,000, for United States $14,250,000; repairs of railroad fences for New York $93,236, for United States $1,771,485; repairs of railroad cars for New York $2,000,000, for United States $38,000,000; fuel (wood) of railroad for New York $3,000,000, for United States $57,000,000.

If, then, these estimates hold true, and they are based upon all the railroads of New York, (thirty-four in number,) long and short, rich and poor, crowded and empty, we see that in the United States the lumber, timber, and wood used for railroad purposes alone (not to build a foot of new road, but only to keep up the road, stocks, and fires) require of wood $141,085,104. But we should never, as Palaissy declared, come to the end of the enumeration, and we will stop.

and

But I would ask, most respectfully, that every farmer and every intelligent man should ask his congressional senator and representative why we should not have, from this day forth, full tables respecting the timber, lumber, and wood of our country, compiled for the public benefit in the census? This is, I believe, the greatest interest of a pecuniary kind connected with our government; all the facts connected with it should be sought out and set before the public. Now is the time to act; we should regard and forestall the future. God has given us a great and goodly heritage-a grand and broad and luxuriant country; but it is our forests that have made this country so salubrious, so fertile. Shall we not preserve and cherish with care what remains, and plant on every quarter section destitute of trees, in all our land, its proper complement of forest, until from sea to sea it shall seem to all men "like the garden of the Lord ?"

I append a copy of the new law of Kansas, to which I have alluded, and which, I think, is the greatest step towards the production of American forests ever taken in this country, and one which places the entire nation under a debt of gratitude to that State and its legislature:

"SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the legislature of the State of Kansas, That any person planting one acre or more of prairie land, within ten years after the passage of this act, with any kind of forest trees, and successfully growing and cultivating the same for three years, and every person planting, protecting, and cultivating for three years one-half mile or more of forest trees along any public highway, said trees to be planted so as to stand at the end of said three years not more than one rod apart, shall be entitled to receive for twenty-five years, commencing three years after said grove or line of trees has been planted, an annual bounty of two dollars per acre for each acre so planted, and two dollars for one-half mile for each mile so planted, to be paid out of the county treasury of the county in which said grove or line of trees may be situated; Provided, the bounty hereby given shall not be paid any longer than said grove or trees are cultivated and kept alive and in a growing condition. "SEC. 2. That any person wishing to avail himself or herself of the provisions of section one of this act, shall, within three years after planting said grove or line of trees, file with the clerk of the county a correct plat of said grove or line of trees, showing on what section of sections of land said grove or line of trees is situated, attested by his oath, and the affidavit of at least one resident householder, setting forth all the facts in relation to the growth and cultivation of said grove or line of trees; whereupon the county clerk shall, if he find from all the evidence that section one of this act has been fully complied with, on or before the first Monday in October in each year, cause warrants to be issued upon the county treasure: of the proper county for the bounty above provided for, which order shall be received by the treasurer in payment of all county taxes.

"SEC. 3. This act to take effect and be in force from and after its publication once in the Leavenworth Conservative.

"Approved February 16, 1866."

As remarked in the body of this article, I consider such an appropriation of money as the most productive of any that that State will ever spend, in increas ing population, reclaiming waste lands, and raising all real estate in value by controlling climatic extremes and favoring the growth of all cultivated crops.

THE ONION;

ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, AND PRESERVATION.

BY ELISHA SLADE, SOMERSET, MASSACHUSETTS.*

and still grows

FROM time immemorial the onion has been cultivated by man, wild in many portions of the world. For more than 4,000 years it has been used as an article of food by "all classes and conditions of men ;" and there are few that have not some savory remembrances of it as a constituent of those dishes that "none can cook as well as mother." The Israelites, 1,490 years before the Saviour's advent, murmured in the wilderness: "We remembered the fish we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlics."-Numbers xi, 5. Hasselquist says that "whoever has tasted the onions of Egypt must allow that none can be had better in any part of the universe. Here they are sweet; in other countries they are nauseous and strong. Here they are soft; whereas, in northern parts they are hard, and their coats are so compact that they are difficult of digestion. Hence they cannot in any place be eaten with less prejudice and more satisfaction than in Egypt.".

It is unknown where, precisely, our cultivated onion originated. Some writers say that no species of the allium now found growing wild will produce the vegetable called the onion, even though cultivated ever so carefully. Others inform us that the species with fistular stalks and swelling bulbs, now found in Persia, would, if cultivated, produce this vegetable, and firmly assert that it is the original of all the varieties of onion now grown. Some declare that the given to Adam as we now have it, and that it has not degenerated,

onion was

and cannot degenerate in the least; while others say that if left to itself for a few years it would "fall from grace," and become like the wild species described. Be these theories as they may, the wild species of Persia is so nearly allied to our cultivated onion that some travellers cannot tell the difference.

In India the onion is highly esteemed for food, and used as an antidote to many diseases, even to a greater extent than in Europe; and most dwellers in our own country can remember it as an article of medicine, administered for their youthful ailments by a skillful mother or maiden aunt.

The ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated it in large quantities, and at one time the Roman armies almost wholly subsisted on it. They also imported onions from abroad in great quantities. The island Cimolus was named Onion on account of the peculiar quality and the immense numbers raised there; and it is said that the Roman provinces of Spain, in the days of Scipio the Younger, produced annually $200,000 worth of this esculent.

Hannibal, who swore "eternal hate to Rome," and led the Carthaginian hosts through sultry Spain and across the snowy Alps, well knew that the health of his army demanded the onion, ever present, amid all the changes of beat and cold. And Aurelian, who led his armies across the burning sands of Arabia, conquering Palmyra, and leading its queen, Zenobia, captive to Rome, found that his army suffered terribly from scurvy, and was restored to health

With additions from other sources, by A. B. Grosh, of the Department of Agriculture.

only when he found in the captured city well-watered gardens containing abundance of garlic and onions.

So great a quantity of this bulb was raised at the Alibi, in France, that the tithe of them is said to have yielded an annual revenue of one thousand crowns for its bishop.

Thus might we glean notice after notice from the pages of history of the high esteem and value accorded this vegetable down to the present day, when Spain, Portugal, and Tripoli yet keep up their ancient reputations for the quantities and qualities of their onions; while in this new world their culture seems everywhere increasing from Canada to Patagonia, and especially in these United States, since our soldiers proved their value in camp, in hospital, and on the march, all through our late civil war. Each one of our brave boys would in dorse the statement of its worth made by a late writer, who estimates the amount of nourishing gluten contained in the onion at 25 or 30 per cent., and says: It is not merely as a relish, therefore, that the Spaniard eats his onion with his humble crust of bread as he sits by the refreshing spring; it is because experience has long proved that, like the cheese of the English laborer, it helps to sustain his strength also, and adds (beyond what its bulk would suggest) to the amount of nourishment which his simple meal supplies.”

But few will deny the importance of the onion as an article of diet, or in a sanitary point of view. Nor is it without commercial importance. An utter failure of the onion crop would create considerable panic in the vegetable market. It is rapidly increasing as an article of export, and will figure largely in the tables which show "how we feed the nations." It is stated on good authority that in the year 1860 the value of onions exported exceeded the value of exports of apples by more than $250,000. It is also estimated that in 1865 there were planted one-fourth more acres of onions than in any previous year, and that the average product per acre was 500 bushels. And yet the market seems by no means glutted; the appetite "grows with what it feeds upon," and, like a certain famous Oliver, asks for "more!" Let us, then, con sider the ways and means to meet the demand, and make the supplying of it profitable.

GOOD SEED.

If compelled to purchase from unknown or unreliable dealers, test the germinating power of the seed before buying. After onion seed is two years old much of it is worthless. The following tests may be of service: 1, new seed is soft, and has a strong taste; 2, good seed sinks in water; 3, placed on cotton, kept soaking wet and in a warm place, good seed will germinate in a few days; 4, pour hot water on two sods, place seed between them, and put the whole under a stove or other warm position, and it will germinate in a few days; and, lastly, (as a test which will also hasten the preparation for planting, and cause an early springing of the crop,) pour boiling water on a mass of seed so as to cover it, pouring it off in a few seconds, when, if good, minute, hairlike sprouts will start from the heated mass, which may then be mixed with plaster or ashes, and immediately planted.

But it is better always to buy your seed from a reliable dealer, even at double price, if necessary, than to get poor or wrong seed as a gift, for the seeds of an inferior kind of onions may be fresh and good as mere seed. And it is best of all to raise your own seed thus:

Select a sufficient number of smooth, hard, ripe onions, of medium size, and of the kinds you desire. Keep them in a cool, dry place, where they will not freeze, though some planters say that freezing does not injure them. As soon as the soil can be worked in the spring, set them out in a rich, deeply-tilled, mellow soil, in rows two feet apart, and the bulbs one foot apart in the rows. Cover them nearly to the stalk, hoe frequently, and keep them free from weeds.