EXPERIENCE OF PRACTICAL GROWERS. 



29 



In handsome form. Thea if you have e-nough ground 

 to pay, get a professional seed-sower. lie will come 

 with a little machine, and sow three or four rows at a 

 time as fast as he can walk. Gauge your machine so 

 as to have the onions, when grown, so near as to touch 

 each other. But have the rows so far apart, that a 

 common hoe will pass between. Do not be afraid of 

 tramping your ground, especially if the soil is light. 



WEEDING. As the roots of onions, many of them, 

 grow near the surface, do not chop down deep with 

 your hoe to cut them off; many a good bed of onions 

 has been spoiled by late weeding, by disturbing the 

 ground too deeply. I like to have my onions hoed in 

 the morning, while the dew is on. If you are going to 

 raise onions indeed, don't be afraid of soiling your 

 knees. Do not cover up the onion too deep, nor leave 

 ".t so as te fall this way and that, by taking away too 

 much dirt from it. 



"TopONioxs" OR "POTATO." When your ground 

 is ready, have a sort of furrowing instrument. It is a 

 home-made thing. Make a thing just like a rake, with 

 no teeth in it ; then put in as many teeth as you wish 

 <;o mark rows with, once going across the bed. Or 

 instead of teeth, nail on rockers. Then push the rake 

 so made, before you. And when you return, place the 

 end-rocker in the outside furrow ; thus do until your 

 rows are all marked. 



SOWING. Take your onions or seed in a basket by 

 your side, go down on your knees, and put in one at a 

 time. But be sure you put it right end up, or the 

 onion will grow heels over head. Cover the seed just 

 out of sight. 



SALT. When you have done planting or sowing your 

 onions, whatever kind they are, sow on salt, common 

 salt. Sow as thick as peas. I would do this again, 

 perhaps in June, not so much the last time. Whether 

 field or garden onions, go out in the morning while the 

 dew is on, or after a shower, take dry unleached ashes, 

 and with a shingle throw them up into the air, and let 

 them fall in a cloud of dust on the onions. Repeat 

 this two or three times while the onions are growing. 

 And I had forgotten to say that coal-dust, taken from 

 old coal-pits or from forges, with leached ashes coated 

 on, and well mixed in the groui il before ploughing, will 



well pay. If your land is quite clayey, leave out the 

 ashes. I think the coal-dust and salt, besides very 

 much quickening the growth of these vegetables, keep 

 off the maggot-fly. 



Go into store-cellars, where they have sold fish and 

 meat, and they will give you the salt and brine. And 

 when you are about it, get all they can spare. Then 

 if you have any to spare, put it on your muck heap, for 

 other crops. 



If you are at a loss what kind of onions to cultivate, 

 inquire for the greatest yielders and the quickest to 

 sell. 



Then the onions you wish to keep for your own use, 

 trace them up and hang them in a dry place until 

 well seasoned, then hang them in the cellar-way for 

 all winter. 



If you have any to sell, take a fair specimen of them ; 

 then go and show them where you wish to sell. But 

 by all means do not let them remain long on your 

 hands. If you keep them long in heaps, they will rot. 

 And then you had better have any thing else. Let 

 them slide at the then present prices. You can well 

 afford them for fifty cents a bushel, but you will 

 oftener get a dollar. For your seed potato-onions, you 

 should have from two dollars to two and a half per 

 bushel. The seed of the top -onions I have usually 

 sold for from four to five dollars per bushel. I have 

 sent out barrels of this seed to distant States, though 

 I have none now to sell. 



Of the top-onions, I have raised at the rate of seven 

 hundred bushels per acre. And one of my neighbors, 

 who followed my directions, raised at the rate of eight 

 kundred per acre. But I have never seen any kind 

 that yields so well as the Wethersfield reds. 



If you wish to get good onions in June, set out any 

 kind of an old onion, and when the top begins to form 

 as if to go to seed, cut off the main stalk, and it will 

 bottom. But these bottoms will never winter, but 

 rot. Eat them green, or supply the market. 



If you want good, new, fresh onions in May, go to 

 the woods, and search in low places, and there gather 

 leeks. Or if you prefer it, raise cives, which are the 

 lowest species of the onion. 



