FRUIT-CULTURE. 285 



do. They would not be satisfied with eight or ten cords to 

 the acre. 



Question. Do you have any trouble with the onion-mag- 

 got^ 



Capt. Moore. A little, not much. Where they get to 



work in a bed, the top turns yellow and falls over : it is 

 partially cut oif from the other part. A large portion of 

 those maggots are left in the piece that falls over. Have a 

 boy go along and pick up those tops, and you secure in that 

 way the maggots that would soon be at work upon another 

 onion ; then the safest thing to do with them is to put them 

 in the stove. That keeps them down better than any thing 

 I have found. I do not know any actual preventive. 



Question. What is the best kind of onion to raise to sell 

 in Boston market? 



Capt. Moore. The middling size, round, thick yellow 

 onion, that is called the Danvers onion sometimes. Be sure 

 you get the right seed : otherwise you will wish you hadn't 

 had any onions. 



Question. Where do you get the seed ? 



Capt. Moore. Well, that is another thing. I am not 

 advertising any seed-man. I can tell you where I get mine 

 usually. This breeding of seed is on the same principle, 

 precisely, as the breeding of animals, — that "like produces 

 like," — to a certain extent. I start with the best thing I can 

 get ; and then, after having formed in my own mind a model 

 of precisely what I want to have my onions, I go to work 

 and select the onions myself. I cannot send a man to do it : 

 I must do it myself. You cannot send a man to pick out any 

 thing of that kind, because there is some little point that the 

 man will overlook; and you do not want to propagate those 

 points. One of them is a little softness close to the stem. 

 A solid onion up there, with a very small stem, and a little 

 rising just at that point, is an onion that will keep a great 

 deal better than one that has any depression there. After 

 selecting onions of the shape and size that I want, I put 

 those away for seed, and I plant them out, and grow the seed 

 myself. Then I do not try to save every lot of seed I have. 

 If I raise the seed myself, I have enough of it ; and I want 

 to sow good, solid, heavy seed, after I have it. 



Question. How long will onion-seed keep ? 



