146 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



when the size of a jiencil, as bunched onions or rareripes. He also 

 grows them for bushel onions, more often producing the ripe onions 

 from sets than from seed. Sets are small onions, about the size of a 

 marble, which are put into the ground the last of March or the first 

 of April, and which give one of the first crops from the garden. 



Growing onions from seed is most often practiced when they can 

 be handled as a companion crop. One of the most profitable com- 

 binations is that of celery and onions. Celery seed is sown in rows 

 4 to 5 feet apart and three or four rows of onions are sown between. 

 In order to make this cropping successful the land must be filled 

 with plant food and plenty of moisture. The seed for both these 

 crops is sown early in April, before the 15th if the ground can be 

 made ready. The rows are spaced about 12 inches apart. Where 

 late celery is so grown the rows must be farther apart. The onions 

 from this seeding are ready to harvest in late August or early Sep- 

 tember, and the room given to celeiy when it is making its most 

 rapid growth. It is often the custom to use onion sets instead of 

 seed between the'eelerv rows. The onions grown from sets are har- 

 vested in July. 



The best soil for onions is a medium, heavy loam, well filled with 

 humus. It is best to use a large amount of manure for the crop 

 preceding the onions and not apply much fresh manure for this 

 crop. A commercial fertilizer analyzing 4 per cent nitrogen, 8 per 

 cent phosphoric acid and 10 per cent potash is suitable. The appli- 

 cation should be 1,000 pounds to the acre. Growing transplanted 

 onions has become a common practice among market gardeners. The 

 advantages are earlier maturity and the possibility of producing 

 long-season varieties of greater size and better quality tlian can be 

 grown from seed in New England. Prizetaker is the variety most 

 commonly so gi'own. The seed of this variety is sown about Febru- 

 ary 15, under glass, either in the greenhouse or hotbed. A single 

 hotbed sash 3 by 6 feet should cover from 5,000 to 8,000 plants. 

 About twenty sashes ai'e required to grow plants enough for an acre. 

 The labor in sotting these plants is gi'eat, but market gardeners find 

 this method of gi'owing onions profitable. The plants are set in rows 

 12 to 15 inches apart, and from 3 to 4 inches apart in the row. 

 Boys will often do the transplanting as well as men and at a less 

 cost to the grower. A nimble-fingered boy should set 3,000 plants 

 a day. The land must be in good tilth, moist and not too firm. The 

 onion plants should be about pencil thickness to give the best results, 

 althougli smaller plants are often used. For setting, the rows must 

 be marked, and where boys do the setting it is well to mark the 

 spacing in the row. 



GroAving onions from sets is a most common practice. Most of 

 the onions growTi for buncliinir are so started. Many gi'owers plant 

 large areas to sets and sell as bunched onions all that it will pay to 



