252 AGRICULTURAL TEXT-BOOK. 



554. In selecting onions for seed, take the largest and those 

 which ripen the earliest, as by so doing the crops will ripen in 

 warm weather. If no care is taken, onions will soon run out, 

 ripening late, and growing with large stiff necks in October. In 

 Massachusetts they should be harvested and dried by the first 

 of August, 



555. The average crop at Danvcrs is about 450 bushels per 

 acre, though GOO or 7 00 are not uncommon, and occasionally 

 1000 ; the wholesale price from 40 to 50 cents per bushel. An 

 instance is given in the Albany Cultivator, where 1209^ bush 

 els of carrots, and 630 bushels of onions were raised off the same 

 acre. 



556. In Russia, the Potato Onion is cut into 4 parts, leaving 

 the quarters hanging together at the root, the onions having 

 first been hung up and dried in the smoke. Smoking, however, 

 is not necessary. The quarters thus united are planted, and 

 produce 4 fine onions. This course has been successfully pur 

 sued for thirty years, resulting in abundant crops. (Pat. Office 

 Report, 1847, p. 188.) 



557. In Vermont, New Hampshire, and north Massachusetts, 

 a maggot has, of late years, proved very destructive to this plant. 

 It is the young of the Onion Fly, (Anthomyia Ceparum,) 

 which lives in the roots and causes them to perish. It appears 

 to be the same insect that destroys the onion in Europe, and 

 has probably been imported. It lays its eggs on the leaves of 

 the onion, close to the earth, so that the maggots, when hatched, 

 readily make their way to the heart of the onion. They come 

 to their growth in about two weeks, turn to pupse within the 

 onions, and come out as flies a fortnight afterwards. It is said 

 that the onion crop may be preserved from the attacks of this 

 fly by sowing the seed on ground upon which a quantity of 

 straw has been previously burned. (Harris 1 Treatise on In 

 sects, p. 494.) In Scotland, the evil is remedied by dusting 



