Vegetable Growing for Market 127 



This should be done quickly, because if wet should come the bulbs may 

 start fresh root action; this, besides making them harder to pull, will 

 seriously impair their quality. After they are pulled the onions are 

 left in narrow "windrows" to get well dried and ripened, and then are 

 harvested in lofts or sheds. Wherever they are put the place must be 

 dry, and such as to allow of free currents of air. If the onions are shot 

 thickly on a floor, it is a wise precaution to put chimneys of empty baskets 

 now and then through them. If they show any signs of heating they must 

 at once be turned over, and the bad ones picked out during the process. 



The price of onions is generally from 4 to 6 per ton. For " picklers ", 

 that is the very small ones, 7 can sometimes be obtained. The crop 

 should be 12 to 15 tons per acre. Good varieties of onion for keeping 

 are Giant Zittau, Up-to-date, and Bedfordshire Champion. 



There used to be a considerable quantity of the Tripoli Onion grown, 

 but the practice is not so general now as it was. One reason given for 

 the decrease is that the increased production of onions in Egypt has 

 enabled retailers to obtain a supply just at the time the Tripoli comes 

 in, in a more convenient form and at lower cost. The Tripoli Onion, 

 either Giant Rocca or Red Tripoli, is sown in seed beds in July, and 

 transplanted in November, in rows 9 in. apart and 6 in. from plant to 

 plant. The crop is ready to pull and bunch in June, when all the home- 

 grown winter onions are finished. 



The Lisbon Onion, a white -skinned variety, is grown for use as a 

 salad. To pay, it must be sown thickly in the rows, 28 Ib. of seed being 

 required to sow 1 ac., the rows being 8 to 9 in. apart. Here also clean 

 land is an indispensable condition to a paying crop. On dirty land the 

 crop is heavily mortgaged before it gets on to the van. The first sowings 

 are made in July, and if successions are desired they should be continued 

 at intervals to late August. The onions are pulled when as thick as lead 

 pencils, bunched in flat or fan bunches, carefully washed, dried on hurdles, 

 and packed for market. The price is 2s. to 3s. per dozen bunches, and a good 

 crop should come off at two to three dozen bunches to the pole. [w. G. L.] 



Spring" Onions. Considerable breadths of Onions are annually sown 

 in the Evesham district, making a total of 150 to 200 ac. Generally the 

 crop is a paying one, but occasionally prices are so low after the early part 

 of the season that many acres are never cleared, and the Onions are dug 

 in. With February, the young Onion season commences, and their pun- 

 gent odour may be detected all around Evesham. At the station they 

 impregnate the air as they wait in trucks to be conveyed to the industrial 

 centres northward. Lorries and spring carts laden with them hurry along 

 the streets and roads; they are set down in heaps and hampers in the 

 wholesale markets; down the side streets leading to the market gardens, 

 which literally invest the town up to the walls of its houses, groups of 

 women are discovered in sheds and outhouses, washing, bunching, and tying 

 this medicinally valuable, if odoriferous, esculent; and their presence and 

 occupation may be known long before there is ocular demonstration. 



