trLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



in February, if the weather is warm and the 

 sun shines very clear, you will have to give 

 them plenty of ventilation. If manage^ right- 

 ly they will just grow beautifully ail the spring 

 months. In March the sashes can be left off 

 almost entirely; and by the first of April in our 

 locality we can take th>- glass away and use it 

 for something else. Once or twice I have 

 known a verv heavy frost in April to do them 

 some harm. The cloth sheets, however, would 

 be all the protection needed at such a time. 

 We generally commence by giving J4 lb. of 

 American Pearl onions for a nickel; a little 

 later we make it .^y of a pound: then }{ lb.; 

 then a whole pound; and when they get to be 

 nearly the size of hens' eggs, customers seem to 

 be so well satisfied with a bunch weighing a 

 pound, tops and all, that we do not often give 

 them more than that amount of this variety 

 for a nickel. If you are going to give two or 

 three pounds for a bunch you must grow them 

 by field culture; and almost any variety will 

 answer for this purpose. Where the onions 

 stand too thick in the field, the thinnings are 

 often used to bunch up. Very much depends 

 on the looks of bunch onions. The bottoms 

 must be peeled so as to make them look fresh 

 and clean, and the tops must be of a bright 

 thrifty green. I know it is customary in the 

 cities to offer them at wholesale as low as 20 

 cts. for a dozen bunches, and sometimes they 

 are down to 15 or even 12 cts. But, of course, 

 these bunches are small, and generally inferior 

 in looks. Bunch onions should be put on the 

 market, and placed before the consumer, the 

 very day they are taken from the ground, if 

 possible. The labor of putting them up is con- 

 siderable; but one who is an expert at the 

 business, and furnished with rubber bands for 

 slipping over the bunches, instead of tying, will 

 put them up very quickly. We have grown 

 them for years, both in the greenhouse and in 

 open beds covered with glass, with artificial 

 heat and without. I believe I should prefer 

 the open beds to the greenhouse, because of the 

 facility with which the glass can be taken off 

 so as to give them the sun and rain. A little 

 heat seems to be an advantage: but if you are 

 careless, and let them get a little too much heat, 

 you will wish, as I often do, that they were in a 

 bed where there is no heat at all except what 

 comes through the glass. If a greenhouse is 

 used it should be some cheap affair that will 

 brine the glass very near to the plants. For 

 growing onions from the seed or sets, you want 

 the full benefit of the sun. If. however, you 

 want to utilize onions that have begun; to 

 sprout, and won't sell easily, they will do very 

 well under the beds, or in a cellar where it is 

 pretty dark. To get this rank tender growth 

 that is wanted in the winter months, the ground 

 should be made exceedingly rich with old fine 

 manure. We have not received much benefit 

 from any of the chemical fertilizers, but guano 

 seems to answer admirably. 



GROWING ONIONS FOR BUNCHING, ENTIRELY IN 

 THE OPEN AIR. 



The best onion for this purpose— that is, the 

 best in quality — is the American Pearl; and 

 where the sets are planted any time in Septem- 

 ber in good rich ground, so as to get well rooted 

 before freezing weather, we have never had 

 any trouble in wintering them nicely. We have 

 tried them both with and without mulching. 

 If a mulching is used it must not be laid over 

 them so as to cover and bend down the tops. If 

 it does, it will pretty surely cause them to rot. 

 Short manure, so it can be sifted between the 

 rows without covering the tops, I believe, is a 

 benefit. Besides the American Pearl we have the 

 new white multiplier. These may be planted 



very early in the spring or in September, at the 

 same time that you plant the American Pearls. 

 They are fully as hardy as the American 

 Pearls — perhaps more so. They never bother 

 us by sinding up a seed-stalk, which the Amer- 

 ican Pearl does. These seed-stalks must be 

 pinched off just as soon as you get a glimpse of 

 them, or it will make your onion tough, and un- 

 fit for use. 



And then there is one other new onion that 

 promises great things, or, rather, bigger onions 

 veiy early in the spring, than any thing else. 

 This is what we described under the name of 

 the Whittaker onion. It is no doubt a variety 

 of the potato onion. It winters perfectly, and 

 produces great solid beautiful onions, even 

 ahead of the American Pearl; but it is a yellow 

 onion instead of a white one. It will need more 

 peeling to fit it for the market; but it is so 

 hardy, and such an enormous grower, I think it 

 is going to he a great favorite. This onion, 

 like the multiplier, never sends up a seed-stalk. 

 Both kinds mature, and the tops dry down 

 some time in July. By this time they should 

 be gathered and sorted— the small ones, medi- 

 um size, and the large ones put by themselves. 

 The three sizes had better be planted, each 

 kind by itself. The planting should be done in 

 August or September. No matter when you 

 plant them, they will not grow much until we 

 have cool weather and fall rains. The smaller 

 ones will simply grow larger, but the larger 

 and medium-sized ones will split up into small 

 ones. The Whittaker onion has the rather pe- 

 culiar property of making little onions which 

 erow little suckers from the parent plant. 

 These will mature, and be found lying loo«e on 

 top of the ground all through June and July. 

 They may be picked up and stored away for 

 sets. 



There, friends, I think I have told you briefly 

 pretty much all I know about bunch onions for 

 market, and the different kinds we use for the 

 purpose. 



THE BUNCH YAM AND THE VINELESS SWEET 

 POTATO. 



On page 275 of our issue for April 1 I spoke of 

 the bunch yam. I am happy to tell you that 

 we have succeeded in getting a very good yield 

 of the bunch yam, and they are growing every 

 day, too, quite satisfactorily. The best part of 

 it is, the quality of the potatoes is most excel- 

 lent. They are, perhaps, not as dry and mealy 

 as the Jersey sweet potato: but they are very 

 much sweeter, an.i as delicious as any thing I 

 have ever tasted in the line of sweet potatoes. 

 One of our circulars from the South states there 

 are 14 lbs. of sugar in every 100 lbs. of potatoes, 

 and I do not know but this may be true. This 

 year we planted them on the poorest, hardest, 

 dryest, gravelly ground we could find on the 

 premises— some that had not had manure for 

 years. In fact, the piece belongs to the rail- 

 road company, and that is the reason why I did 

 not want to waste manure on it; and perhaps 

 this accounts not only for my excellent yield, 

 but for the superb quality. And this reminds 

 me, when I was enthusiastic over raising sor- 

 ghum here in the North, some thirty or forty 

 years ago, one of the government bulletins said 

 if you wanted a fine quality of syrup, almost 

 equal to honey itself, you would have to raise 

 your crop on poor, hard, dry ground; but, of 

 course, we get a comparatively small yield of 

 cane; but the quality is ever so much better 

 than where you plant on the rich creek bottoms 

 and have a tremendous growth of stalks and 

 leaves. I wonder if this can be true with sweet 

 potatoes. Last year, on my heavily manured 

 deep rich ground I had a great growth of tops, 



