ONION 



ONION 



2349 



2585. Chive. Allium 



Schoenoprasum. 



very early or bunch onions were raised from bulbs, but 

 recently a so-called "new onion-culture" has come into 

 vogue, which consists in sowing seeds in hotbeds or 

 coldframes and transplanting the young plants. Bulb- 

 propagation is of three general categories: (1) The use 

 of bulbets or ''top onions" which appear on the top of 

 the flower-stalk in the 

 place of flowers; (2) the 

 use of bulbels or sepa- 

 rable parts of an onion 

 bulb, known as "multi- 

 pliers,' ' or "potato onions ;" 

 (3) the use of ordinary 

 bulbs which are arrested 

 in their growth, known as 

 "sets." 



Bulblets, or top onions, 

 are shown in Fig. 2588. 

 If one of these bulblets is 

 planted in the spring, it 

 quickly produces a young 

 bulb, and the growing 

 bulb may be pulled at 

 any time and eaten. If 

 allowed to remain in the 

 ground, however, it sends 

 up a stalk (either the first or second year) which bears 

 a cluster of bulblets, sometimes mixed with flowers, on 

 its top. There are two or three strains of top onion 

 on the market, although the leading ones are the white 

 and the red, these names applying to the color of the 

 bulblets. The so-called "Egyptian onion" is a top onion; 

 also the "tree onion." 



Multipliers are shown in Figs. 2589, 2590. Instead 

 of containing a single "heart" or core, as in most onions, 

 it contains two or more. When the onion is planted, 

 each of these cores or bulbels sends out leaves and grows 

 rapidly for a time; that is, the old or compound bulb 

 separates into its component parts. The growing 

 bulbels may be pulled and eaten at any time. If 

 allowed to remain in the ground, each of these bulbels 

 will make a compound bulb like that from which it 

 came. Sometimes flower-stalks are produced from mul- 

 tiplier or potato onions. The best results with multi- 

 pliers are secured when the bulbels are separated on 

 being planted, for each one has room in which to grow. 

 Two or three kinds of multiplier onions are known, the 

 variation being chiefly in the color of the bulb. 



Onion sets are merely ordinary onions which are 

 arrested in their growth, and when planted will resume 

 growth. They are grown from seed. The seed is sown 

 very thick on rather poor land, so that the young bulbs 

 soon reach the possibilities of their growth ; they mature 

 when still very small. These small bulbs or sets are 

 then harvested and kept over winter, and used for 

 planting the following spring. When planted, they 



frow rapidly and may be pulled and used for the table, 

 f allowed to remain in the ground, they send up flower- 

 stalks and produce seeds as do common onions. Sets 

 are not allowed to seed, however, since the seeds from 

 sets would probably produce an inferior race of onions. 

 Any variety of seed-bearing onion may be grown and 

 propagated as sets, although there are relatively few 

 that give uniformly good results. In the trade, onion 

 sets are usually designated as yellow, red, or white. In 

 order to secure good results from onion sets, it is essen- 

 tial that the sets be small and firm. They should not be 

 over ^2 inch in diameter, if they are of the best. If 

 they are much larger than this, they tend to run to seed 

 rather than to produce bulbs. Sometimes the very 

 small and inferior onions are saved from the regular 

 crop and are used as sets the following spring. Such 

 sets are generally known as "rareripes." Usually they 

 do not give the best results. 



The varieties of onions are numerous. Some of the 

 forms of bulbs are shown in Fig. 2587. In 1889 ("Annals 



of Horticulture") seventy-eight varieties of "seed" 

 onions were offered by American dealers, and also 

 about twenty kinds of multipliers, potato onions, and 

 sets. For purposes of careful scientific study, the 

 varieties may be classified into geographical races, 

 but for purposes of description they may be assembled 

 into groups characterized by such arbitrary features 

 as form and color of bulb. Goff (Sixth Report 

 of New York State Experiment Station, for the year 

 1887) classifies first by shape of bulb and then by 

 color. He makes four primary groups: bulb oblate, 

 spherical, top-shape, oval or pear-shape. Each of these 

 groups is divided in three sections: color white, yellow 

 or brownish, red or reddish. Another classification 

 (Bailey, Bull. No. 31, Mich. Agric. College, 1887) makes 

 three primary sections on methods of propagation: 

 propagated by division (multipliers), by bulblets or 

 "tops," by seeds (or sets). The last section (seed onions) 

 is divided into bulbs silvery white and bulbs colored, 

 and these groups are again divided on shape of bulb. 



When onions are grown continuously on the same 

 land they are likely to become seriously affected with 

 smut. Rotation of crops is the fundamental remedy. 

 Sulfur and lime drilled into the soil with the seed at the 

 rate of one hundred pounds sulfur and fifty pounds air- 

 slaked lime to the acre, is also helpful. The smut may 

 kill the young onion plants outright. The onion mil- 

 dew causes wilting or blighting of the leaves, without 

 the black pustules caused by the smut. Bordeaux 

 mixture is the standard remedy; a "sticker" should 

 be added to the mixture. 



Aside from the chapters on onions in the vegetable- 

 gardening manuals, there are special treatises, as 

 Greiner's "Onions for Profit," and "The New Onion 

 Culture;" Greiner and Arlie's "How to Grow Onions," 

 the Orange Judd Company's "Onion Book," Gregory's 

 "Onion Raising;" J. P. Underwood's "Onion Culture." 



L. H. B. 

 The new onion-culture (transplanting process). 



The idea of raising onions by growing seedlings in 

 beds and transplanting to the open, which are the 

 essential features of 

 what has been 

 termed "the new 

 onion - culture , " is 

 not new. It has 

 long been put in 

 practice in the Ber- 

 mudas, among the 

 Portuguese growers 

 in California, and in 

 various places in Eu- 

 rope. This, however, 

 does not detract 

 from the fact that 

 the writer, as well 

 as W. J. Green, of 

 Ohio, rediscovered 

 (about 1889) this 

 old plan or method 

 of onion -growing, 

 which was then un- 

 known in their 

 localities and also 

 in most parts of 

 the United States. 

 There are only few, 

 if any, modern in- 

 novations which 

 have left an equally 

 deep impression on 

 our garden prac- 

 tices. The trans- 

 planting method is 2586. Bunch onions from the early 

 admirably adapted spring sowing. 



