PREFACE XV11 



just as good onions as any coming from foreign 

 countries. 



The retail customers of our grocery stores are 

 asked to pay five, six or seven cents a pound for the 

 imported "Spanish" onion. During summer, fall and 

 part or all of the winter, the home-grown "Spanish," 

 Gibraltar and Prizetaker, onions can be sold by grocers 

 at a profit at three cents a pound, and allow one dollar 

 a bushel for the grower. I can see no sense, on the 

 part of the retail buyer, in paying the price asked for 

 the imported article, or of importing the real Spanish 

 onions and offering them for sale, while the home- 

 grown "Spanish" onion, which is in every way the equal 

 of the other, can be had. I would like to see the 

 imported bulb crowded out of our markets, at least to 

 some extent. It can be done by making use of "the ne.w 

 onion culture/' and of the fine varieties of onions of 

 the Spanish type which we now possess in the Prize- 

 taker and Gibraltar. 



The only problem which remains for us to solve is 

 that of keeping the large sweet bulbs of this class until 

 spring or early summer, whether this be done by means 

 of putting in cold storage, or of exposing to the fumes 

 of burning sulphur, or in other ways, at which times 

 they would find ready sale at possibly twice the prices 

 obtainable for them in the fall. 



The new plan of onion growing can be justly and 

 earnestly recommended for four special purposes, viz: 



1. For the production of a full home supply of 

 the very finest and largest onions; and, especially to 

 the novice, as the very easiest way of securing most 

 desirable results. 



2. For growing exhibition onions that will be 

 sure to take the prizes at any fair in competition with 

 onions grown in the ordinary way. 



