64 THE NEW ONION CULTURE 



because they do not know how to do the job properly. 

 Put the bulbs — tops, roots and all — in weak brine for 

 a day or so. Then there will be neither hard work nor 

 the shedding of tears over it. 



GROWING ONION SETS 



For growing sets the following hints will sufifice : 

 Select Silverskin for white, Early Red for red, and 

 Yellow Dutch (or perhaps Yellow Danvers) for 

 yellow, and sow seed at the rate of forty to sixty 

 pounds to the acre. Handle in somewhat the same 

 fashion as the pickling onions. All that will not pass 

 through a sieve with three-fourths-inch meshes are 

 too large for sets, and should go among the larger 

 pickling onions. 



We have also found that the set grown from 

 Prizetaker seed will keep as well as any other onion 

 set known to us, and that it will make a remarkably 

 fine and sweet early green or bunching onion. For 

 wintering any onion sets, you must, of course, have a 

 room where you can keep them cool and dry, either 

 just above the freezing point, or if a little below freez- 

 ing, constantly low enough that they will not thaw 

 out until near planting time. 



For green onions the sets are planted, in a mild 

 climate during the fall, here where the winters are 

 severe, in early spring, in rows a foot apart, in furrows 

 an inch or two deep, and an inch or two apart in 

 the row. 



The earliest green or bunching onion is the 

 Egyptian Winter or Perennial Tree onion (Fig 44). 

 This is hardy as an oak, and in good soil will spread 

 like a weed, and yield immense quantities of a fairly 

 good green onion, especially if planted rather deep, 

 say three inches, so that the lower end of the stalk 



