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the grass seed. The onion is a gross feeder, and, without adequate manuring, there will be no satisfactory crop. The plants will not form bulbs properly if poorly fed. The yield will be in proportion to the quantity and quality of the manure. Thirty loads, of thirty bushels each, sufficiently compressed, or fermented, to weigh forty pounds to the bushel, is not a heavy application. Twentyfive loads of night-soil would do as well. If other fertilizers, such as bone-meal (which is excellent), or guano, are used, they should be harrowed in so as to permit the roots of the young plants to reach them. A top-dressing of a hundred bushels of ashes per acre is beneficial.

After several years of manuring with stable manure, a change to a half ton of bone-flour, ammoniated superphosphate, guano, or five hundred pounds of sulphate of ammonia would be advisable. If the land is new, or loamy, a cross plowing and double harrowing may be necessary to put it in proper trim to receive the manure. It should be level, lest heavy rains may wash out the seed on the higher points, and cover the plants in lower ones too deeply. At the South, where we are visited by heavy rains, onions, on a small scale, are best planted on four-feet-wide "lazy beds," the intervening paths acting as auxiliary drains. The seed may be sown upon these beds by hand, in drills half an inch deep, twelve inches apart, across the bed. On a larger scale, where machines must be used, making two drills at a time, the sowing had better be done on narrow lands, fifteen or twenty feet wide, the rows running lengthwise, twelve or fifteen inches apart. Beds, or narrow lands, are formed in plowing under the manure, previously applied broadcast, as shallow as possible, and, if the furrows intervening between the lands are too shallow to act as drains, the loose soil is to be thrown out upon the beds with hoes or shovels. The surface must be thoroughly fined with harrow and handrake. In fair weather, the seed will be up in two weeks.

CULTIVATION.

The only sure road to success in onion culture, even when all other conditions are favorable, is clean cultivation, and as soon as the lines of young plants are distinguishable, hoeing should be commenced, and repeated, with hand-weeding, whenever necessary, no weed being allowed to grow large enough to disturb the roots of the onion, when pulling it, and be continued to within about a month from the time the crop matures. The soil should be stirred between the plants in the row.

The chief objection to this crop is the amount of careful labor required to keep it clean, at least four or five hoeings being necessary, for which the scuffle, push, or Dutch hoe is the best implement.

Onions grow best upon the surface, as their roots do not penetrate the soil deeply; therefore, the hoeing must be superficial, and no soil should be drawn to the rows. They should be thinned to four inches in the row, if only large bulbs are wanted, but in case a large yield is desired, irrespective of size, the stand may be closer. Transplanted onions take root very readily; therefore, any vacant spaces may be supplied, or new beds made with the plants removed in thinning, cutting back the roots to about an inch, and the leaves one-half their length. The roots should be put down straight, and the plants deeper than they grew originally. If onions have room laterally, groups of four or five may be left together, because in their efforts for survival, they will push one another sidewise, and mount on top of each other, and still form round, marketable bulbs.

HARVESTING AND MARKETING.

At the North, where the onions are to be stored for winter use, the whole crop is pulled when three-fourths of the plants have turned yellow, shrivelled and dried in

the neck sufficiently to topple over. At this time, some of the roots are dead, and have lost their hold upon the soil. The onions are allowed to remain spread upon the ground for two or three weeks to dry, before being housed. They are in fit condition for storing, when no moisture is visible upon strongly twisting the necks. Here, the crop being wanted for an early market and immediate use, the onions are pulled, as they successively indicate maturity by toppling over, and are left on the ground a day or two, or they are removed at once, and the necks cut off with a sharp knife, an inch or so from the bulb, when they are carefully packed in bushel crates and shipped.

A vegetable, not a luxury, and rarely, if ever, out of market, cannot be expected to bring high prices. Onions range between one dollar and two dollars and fifty cents per bushel crate. In our local market they brought last June from two dollars and twenty-five cents to two dollars and seventy-five cents per bushel crate.

A globular-shaped onion will produce a crop one-third larger than one that is flat in form.

RAISING ONION SEED.

If properly matured, and carefully preserved, Southern-grown seed is as good as any. The onion being a biennial plant, it produces seed the second season. The bulbs from which it is contemplated to save the seed should be selected, choosing those which combine the distinguishing peculiarities of the variety, in order that the seed may remain true. If planted in the fall, the seed will be ripe the following July or August. The soil should not be as rich as for the crop of bulbs, lest the flowers may blight and form no seed. The rows should be about eighteen inches apart, and the entire bulbs pressed into the soil below the surface, about eight inches apart in the row. The seed stalks of some of the varieties are five feet high, and unless they are supported,

they will break or bend over, until the seed heads either touch the ground, or approach it so closely as to be damaged by the moisture. This support is most easily given by stretching twine a few inches below the seed heads, one along the middle of the bed, and another on the outer edge of every bed. The seed is ripe enough for gathering, when the pods commence to burst open, and heads and stalks turn yellow. The stalks are carefully cut six or eight inches from the heads, which are allowed to fall into a bucket or open bag, otherwise some of the seed may shell out and be lost. Partly-matured seed will not ripen fully, if the stalk is cut close to the seedcluster.

These must be spread out upon the close floor of a dry loft, or hung up to dry thoroughly, when they may be thrashed out, winnowed, and washed. The false seed and husks will float upon the surface of the water, while only the good seed will sink to the bottom of the vessel. The seed must be quickly and thoroughly dried in the sun before being stored away.

ONION SETS.

At Norfolk, onions for the Northern markets are not grown from the seed, as the crop would not sufficiently anticipate those of more northern latitudes; but from sets* or small onions. Those of the "Potato-onion" are put out in August and September, and sets of the "Silverskin" and "Yellow Danvers" in February.

The "Potato-onion " produces no seed, but forms from three to ten small bulbs around the old one, from which it is propagated. These small bulbs, when planted out, increase in size, and form a large and marketable onion. These produce the earliest crop of local growth, and even survive the winter as far north as Vermont. The prep

* The English word "sets" may have come over from the German "Setz-Zwiebel," that is: planting.onions,

aration of the ground for these and for other onion sets is the same as for the crop from seed.

The sets are pressed into the soil at the distances the crop is to mature, the tops about level with the surface, care being taken to have the root end down. The sets should range in size from that of a pea to a commonsized marble. The smaller the better. When the bulbs are too much developed, they are apt to run to seed instead of producing good onions. Onion sets are often high-priced, costing from five to ten dollars per bushel; but they may be grown at the South with proper management. The land should certainly be free from weeds and grass, lighter and less richly manured than for the crop. The rows may be ten inches apart, and the seed should be sown late in the season, about May 1st, and much thicker than when intended to produce large bulbs. From fifteen to twenty pounds to the acre are required.

INSECTS.

The larvæ of the Dipterous, or Two-winged insects, which at present infest the onion in this country, penetrate it at the root; and the first indication of their presence are symptoms of disease and approaching death. There is no remedy, but to dig up every wilted and yellow plant, and to hunt for and destroy the grub within the rotting bulb, with a view to curtail future depredations.

The black Onion-fly (Ortalis flexa), is a native of this country, while (Anthomyia ceparum,) is an imported insect.

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