CHAPTER XXXIV. 

 ONIONS. 



There is hardly any culinary vegetable more largely grown 

 North and South than the onion, and there is no crop to the 

 perfection of which the commercial fertilizers are better fitted, be- 

 cause of the tendency of stable manure to introduce weed* seeds, 

 and there is no crop that must be kept more clear of weeds 

 than the onion. "Clean as an onion bed," has grown into a maxim 

 in culture. Our market gardeners grow onions very largely for bunching 

 while green in the early spring, the main crop of onions ripened and sold in 

 barrels are grown on lands especially adapted to the crop, and by farmers 

 rather than gardeners. The methods for producing the crop are as various 

 as the purposes for which it is grown. In Bermuda, and to some extent in 

 Florida, the so-called Bermuda onion is grown by sowing the seed in the fall 

 for the winter crop. Onions prefer a cool climate and a moist soil, and when 

 grown in the South, they must be given the most favorable season in which 

 to grow. Anywhere south of Virginia it would be perfectly feasible to sow 

 onion seed in September for the early green crop in the spring. But we have 

 found that our September weather is so uniformly dry that at that time 

 getting a stand of onions from seed is very uncertain. Hence for this green 

 crop we are compelled to resort to the use of sets. 



GROWING THE SETS. 



We use seed of the Queen onion for the growing o sets, since they are 

 only used in the production of the green bunching crop, and we want a quick 

 growing onion rather than a large one. Growers in the South, and even in 

 the Middle States, have gotten so much in the habit of grow- 

 ing their onions entirely from sets, that growers in many section 

 in the Northern States, make the growing of sets an import- 



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