28 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



required is almost nothing. A very small plot of ground, a little lumber for 

 making the beds, waterproof cloth and straw mats, if glass cannot be afforded, 

 and a small outlay for manure and for seeds, and you have it all. Ten dollars 

 will easily furnish the equipment for hot-beds which will supply more than a 

 hundred dollars' worth of plants. It should be borne in mind that a second 

 crop can be grown here as well as in the garden ; for as soon as the lettuce and 

 cabbage and other early plants are off, the same beds should be utilized for 

 ^celery and sweet potatoes. 



If one undertakes this branch of gardening, he should employ some busi- 

 ness talent in disposing of the product. It is well to make a canvass early in 

 the season, and secure as many advance orders as possible, as many people will 

 buy if the matter is brought to their notice who would not think of it if left to 

 themselves. Then when the plants are ready, and the weather and soil propitious 

 for setting them out, draw quantities of them from the beds and place them at 

 the grocer's for sale (well bedded in fresh rich earth), or fill a light wagon with 

 them, and make a house-to-house canvas. 



ONIONS IN 1893. 



E have frequently referred in these columns to the success attained 

 with the Prizetaker onion by Mr. T. Greiner, a horticultural writer 

 and experimenter, just across the border of Niagara P'alls. This 

 gentleman frequently attends the meetings of our Association, and 

 some of us, having tried his method of cultivating onions with fair 

 success, will be interested in his experience this season. He is 

 more than ever convinced that the Prizetaker is the most profitable 

 -variety. He says in the Country Gentleman: If I want to make sure of a 

 good crop of onions, I will plant the Prizetaker, growing seedlings under glass, 

 and transplanting to open ground in April. Onions just at present are cheap, 

 being quoted at only $1,25 to $1.75 per barrel by the Buffalo commission 

 houses ; yet I sold all the Prizetakers I had in early fall at from $1 to $1.25 per 

 bushel at Niagara Falls, and could have sold many wagon-loads more at that 

 price if I had only had them. 



The expense connected with growing the seedlings is the only bugbear y€t 

 operating against a more general adoption of the plan known as " The New 

 Onion Culture," By sowing seed in rows in hotbeds or on greenhouse benches, 

 I have usually calculated on from 300 to 400 plants per square foot or bed. 

 •Once I raised 8,000 plants from one ounce of seed under one hotbed sash 3 by 

 5 feet, or over 500 plants per square foot. Usnally, however, I do not get more 

 ihan half that hufnber. . But as I start the plants now in greenhouse, and like 



