ONIONS. 165 



onions, although somewhat scattering-, will be of good size 

 while if the plants are too thick they must be thinned out, or 

 the onions will be small and inferior. The work of thinning- 

 onions on a larg-e scale is a very expensive operation, and 

 every precaution should be taken to avoid having to do it. If 

 the seed is sown only a little thicker than the plants ought to 

 stand.it is a good plan instead of thinning them out to put on 

 an extra dressing of some quick acting, easily applied manure, 

 such as hen manure, which will probably make it possible for 

 the land to mature the whole crop in good shape. Onions 

 have the quality of crowding out to the sides of the row and 

 on top of one another, so that they may grow pretty thick and 

 still be of good size, providing other conditions are fav- 

 orable to their development. It is important to have the seed 

 sown in straight rows. If the first row is laid off with a line 

 or otherwise made straight, the subsequent rows are easily 

 made parallel to it by means of the marker on the seed sower. 

 If there are found to be some vacancies in the rows aftsr the 

 onions appear, these may be filled by sowing onion seed in them 

 by hand: late in the season such vacancies maybe filled with 

 carrot seed. 



Cultivation. As soon as the plants commence to break the 

 surface soil, cultivation should be commenced with a hand cul- 

 tivator that will work both sides of the row at one time and 

 throw a little earth from the plant: hand weeding should fol- 

 low at once. At the second hoeing, the plants being now pretty 

 strong, the soil should be cultivated somewhat deeper. This 

 will enable a careful man to work the soil very close to the 

 plants. Onions naturally grow in the surface of the land and 

 not below it and should never be hilled up. The onion crop 

 should be hoed and weeded as often as the weeds appear or 

 whenever the ground packs hard around the growing plants. 

 The weeds should be destroyed when small. This means that 

 until early summer the onions should be hoed about once every 

 two weeks. When th3 plants get so large that they will no 

 longer pass under the straddle cultivator without being bruised 

 the work <tf cultivation must be continued between the rows 

 until the bulbs commence to form, after which it is not a good 

 plan to work rcmch among them, since pushing the tops about 

 tends to make them die down quicker than otherwise. When 



