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BEST KINDS OF ONIONS AND HOW TO GROW THEM. 173 
work of the first year; but the first crop was 600 bushels, while the last 
crop was only 400 bushels. Owing to lack of moisture in July and first part 
of August, they ripened up too early, so they did not grow as large, but the 
price is better, and I will make more out of this crop than the first year. 
The coming year I expect to plant about one acre, and they will be Red 
and Yellow Globe Danvers. I like the Globe onions the best, at least I 
think they will keep better—will not sprout so much. 
In conclusion, will say, select good, clean land and have it rich; use ashes 
and lime; work the land good; keep the weeds out, and there will be suc- 
cess in Onions. 
Prof. Waldron, (N. D.): In regard to varieties, I will say that 
we have raised 1371 bushels to the acre of Giant Gibraltar and raised 
a little over 900 bushels of the Prize Taker. Under the same condi- 
tions the Giant Gibralter has given us some three hundred bushels 
more than any other variety. Other onions gave us only about four 
or five hundred bushels. 
Mr. Reeves: What kind of fertilizer did you use? 
Prof. Waldron: We used different fertilizers. There is a great 
difference in handling the soil. Handling the soil has more to do 
with it than any fertilizer. We transplant the onions entirely. They 
are set out very early in the spring and transplanted when as large 
as a lead pencil. Dry weather comes in July, and the onions are 
not rooted deep enough to withstand the drouth, and they do not 
do well. We never grow more than four hundred bushels to the 
acres when not transplanted. 
The President: Do you try to make the soil compact? 
Prof. Waldron: They do not do so well in a compact soil. We 
sow them very thick in boxes in hotbeds. Those sets that are 
planted which produce the onions are little sets, the tops are about 
two inches long, and a good man with a dibble will set ten thousand 
a day. The Giant Gibralter will average a diameter of nearly five 
inches. No one would believe but what you had sorted them and 
selected the biggest. I have taken them to fairs, and they believed 
I had taken the biggest. An onion in July ought to have a circum- 
ference of ten inches. I would not think of growing onions with- 
out transplanting. 
Mr. Smith, (Wis): I think if my friend who transplants one- 
tenth of an acre would transplant twenty acres he would find that 
his profits would not multiply so fast, particularly if he had to keep 
those onions a few weeks after harvest. I have yet to see or hear of 
those immense onions that were worth shed room in the ordinary 
sense of onions to supply the markets of the world. We raised an- 
nually for the last two or three years about twenty acres of onions, 
and before that from four to six and ten acres. Those onions are 
not marketed until October and November, and by that time most 
of those Prize Takers are worthless. 
Prof. Waldron: What date do you have for marketing your 
onions? 
Mr. Smith: October, November and December. 
Prof. Waldron: I sold some Giant Gibralter as late as that, and 
they were just as hard and firm as any variety you could find. 
