Xll PREFACE 



etable that has commanded so much and so long 

 continued intense attention, cannot be without great 

 merit, nor without unusual promise as a profitable 

 crop. True, the onion has often been looked upon as 

 the pariah among vegetables. Yet the great majority 

 of people are inordinately fond of onion flavor, even 

 if some try to hide their liking for it as if they were 

 ashamed of it. As a money crop, too, the despised 

 onion occupies a front rank. Its annual production 

 in the United States runs high up into the millions of 

 bushels. The importations, especially of the large 

 sweet or Spanish type of onions during spring and 

 early summer, also represent a- large figure, reaching 

 sometimes close to the million-bushel mark for the year. 



My own earlier interest in onion growing was 

 revived by the introduction, in 1889, of the Prizetaker 

 onion, a variety of that large and very mild Spanish 

 type which we now import in still considerable quan- 

 tities from abroad. The bulbs, in my (then) New 

 Jersey sandy loam grew so beautiful and perfect, and 

 of such large size (although grown by the old method, 

 from seed sown in open ground in spring), that I 

 became really enthusiastic about the possibilities hidden 

 in the crop. In my further experiments with this 

 novelty, I stumbled, in 1890, upon the method now 

 generally known as "the new onion culture." 



The new plan may now be safely said to have 

 passed the experimental stage. It has stood the ordeal 

 of a dozen years of trial, and sometimes of hostile 

 criticism or prejudice. But it has slowly made its 

 way into favor with those growers who understand its 

 scope and purport, and has made money for them. 

 Already in 1893 I quoted from a letter then just 

 received from Mr A. I. Root of Medina, Ohio, the 

 publisher of Gleanings in Bee Culture, and himself 

 known as an enthusiastic gardener, as follows, viz: 



