RAISING ONIONS BY IRRIGATION. 



BY I. T. C. NYE, OF LAREDO, TEXAS. 



The following is in answer bo your inquiry as to how I came to go 

 into the irrigation business and also gives a short statement of my 

 methods and success in onion growing. 



In 1890 I bought a small ranch in La Salle county, six miles 

 northeast of Cotulla, Texas. I kept steers principally on this ranch 

 and I kept a hired man a negro who was a good farm hand, as well 

 as a fairly good cow puncher, and we tried to do farming, but owing 

 to the lack of rain we made but a poor success of the operation. Now 

 at that timje there was not a garden worth speaking of in the county 

 and we very soon got tired of doing without vegetables. Time hung 

 very heavily on my hands, so I concluded to lay a pipe from the stock 

 cistern (which was kept full by a windmill pumping from a two hun- 

 dred foot well) to the field 300 feet away; the colored man said that 

 the point where we reached the field with the water was the poorest 

 ground on the ranch, but economy compelled me to put the garden 

 there. We had only an inch and a half pipe and not sufficient water 

 for more than a plat of ground 50 feet square, but the garden stuff 

 grew finely. The darkey had been accustomed to farming on Old 

 Caney in Matagurda county, which is said to be the richest land in 

 Texas, and our garden proved to be a great surprise to him as well as 

 myself. This success on a small scale encouraged me to try and do a 

 little more, and I had a well bored in the middle of the garden and the 

 family were supplied with all the vegetables they wanted, and I sold 

 about $200 worth a year besides. The well, windmill, well boring and 

 horse-power pumping jack cost $700. I learned that there was some- 

 thing in growing onions by irrigation, for on 6,000 square feet of 

 ground I grew 2,800 pounds of Bermuda onions and sold them f. o. b. 

 'Cotulla for $70. 



Late in 1897 I sold the ranch, and after studying what I should go 

 into, finally concluded to go where there was plenty of water and buy 

 an irrigated farm, so I came here and found my present place, which 

 is situated on the bank of the Rio Grande, five miles north of Laredo, 

 lying along the I. & G. N. railway, with a flag station on the place. 

 I purchased 100 acres of land, a residence, all necessary outbuildings, 

 and pumping plant complete, with a capacity of 50,000 gallons of 

 water per hour for which I paid $7,000, and after four years' experi- 

 ence $15,000 could not buy it today. 



At first I planted onion seed for a stand on four acres or more and 



