I58 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



the bulbs from the ground, throwing five rows into each windrow 

 at the same operation. Here they are left until thoroughly dry, 

 turning occasionally with a wood rake. 



We usually sold our crop from the field, picking up and sacking 

 from the windrow, being very careful to discard every onion not 

 fully matured. By this mode of selling our expense of handling 

 was reduced to a minimum, no small matter in handling 2,000 to 

 3,000 bushels, and taking everything into consideration we found 

 one year with another that we were ahead on sales made from the 

 field." 



Of course we always stored a few hundred bu. for home trade. 

 When we stored we brought our crates into the field and filled 

 them, taking to the storehouse, where they remained until so 

 cold that we were, obliged to remove to the cellar. The longer 

 they can be left in the storehouse the better. We tried one winter 

 keeping a few hundred bushels by covering with straw in a loft, 

 and keeping frozen till spring. With us it was not a success, the 

 onions lacking the firmness, after thawing out, of those stored. 

 We never practiced it. A dry cellar, as near freezing point as 

 possible and not freeze, is an ideal place to winter the onion crop. 



Our onion field was to us, when engaged in market gardening, 

 always the most interesting and pleasing field in our garden farm. 

 There is no crop that takes the eye of the visitor as quickly as 

 a large and well kept field of onions, the beautiful dark green and 

 perfectly straight rows almost merging into one at the far end of 

 the field is a picture of symmetry and promise of bounteous prosp- 

 perity not soon to be forgotten. And not the least interesting fea- 

 ture is the resulting well filled pocket, for "onions by the acre" pay! 



Graduates of the Minnesota State Farm School.— Mr. A. K. Bush: 

 "In my travels about the state I met a large number of these farm students, 

 and I thought how different it was with them when they reached home than 

 with the average professional man when he goes out into his field work. We 

 find they are not only helping themselves, but that the entire community 

 is benefited by what they are doing. They do better farming, and they get 

 better results, the whole neighborhood is leavened, and everybody is made 

 better. Let one graduate from the school of medicine; he goes to his work in 

 a field that is already filled with men as well or better qualified than himself, 

 and it is usually a long time before his influence is felt in the community. 

 We find it the same in other schools and professions. Let "one go out from 

 the divinity school; he is perhaps better equipped than others, and the others 

 suffer by it. The student is better qualified to do his work, he does it well, 

 others come to see it and to pattern after it, and the whole neighborhood is 

 benefited." 



