§8 One Thousand Questions in Agriculture 



How Many Crops of Onion Seed? 



Does the groiving of onion seed exhaust adobe land, and if so, how 

 many years' cropping before it requires rest or fertilising? 



The growth of any seed crop, including cereal grains, of course, 

 makes a supreme draft upon soil fertility. How long a certain soil 

 can stand it, depends upon the amount of fertility it has when the 

 draft begins. The best rough way to tell how it is going, is to watch 

 the growth and crop, when moisture conditions are known to be 

 favorable. If you get a good growth of the plant it is still good to 

 make the seed. 



Onions from Seed. 



Will onions from seed mature the same season if they are irrigated? 

 Some tell us they ivill not, so zve ivould be very much pleased to hear 

 from you. 



Onions grown from the seed do fully develop during the grow- 

 ing season following the planting of the seed. In fact, nearly all 

 California onions are grown in that way. Our growing season is so 

 long that we do not need to use onion sets to any extent, .as they 

 do in short-summer climates. 



Dry Farming with Chili Peppers. 



If I set chili pepper plants dawn six or eight inches lower than the 

 surface of the ground and till in as the plants grow larger,. will this help 

 in case I could not get water enough? My soil is a deep sandy loam. 

 We have had betzveen five and six inches of rain. Do you think zvater 

 every fifteen days would be enough? 



On such light soil as you mention, the plants can be planted 

 deeply and a certain amount of soil brought up to the plants by 

 cultivation without injury. As this plant has a long growing season 

 and matures its crop' rather late, you will undoubtedly need irriga- 

 tion. Probably irrigation twice a month will be sufficient in con- 

 nection with good cultivation, but you will have to watch the plants 

 and apply the water as it seems to be needed, rather than by a spe- 

 cific scheme of days. 



Harvesting Peanuts. 



/ would like information regarding the curing of peanuts. Should 

 they be bkached, and, if so, hozv is it done? Does bleaching affect the 

 ke.eping qualities? 



It is not usual to bleach peanuts. They should be grown in 

 such light soil that they will not be stained, and the common method 

 of curing is to dig or plow up, throw the vines, with nuts attached, 

 into windrows and allow them to lie a week or ten days for drying. 

 Then the nuts are picked into sacks and cleaned before shipment in 

 revolving drums, followed by a grain faji which throws out the light 

 nuts and other rubbish. Bleaching would not destroy the keeping 

 quality probably, but it would destroy the flavor and the germinating 

 power. The latter would not matter, except with such nuts as you 



