ONIONS. 167 



Keeping Onions. Onions should be kept in a dry, cool place. 

 In a damp cellar they will sprout and grow no matter if the 

 temperature there is near the freezing point. They will stand 

 quite a little frost without much injury, but if frozen and 

 thawed several times they become soft and do not keep well 

 but start to grow very quickly. The best way of keeping- 

 onions is in a cold, dry room in slatted bins or on shelves 

 so arranged that the air can circulate through them. A very 

 practical plan is to put them in barrels without heads, having 

 holes in the bottom and sides and pile these on top of one an- 

 other two tiers high, first putting down scantling or other 

 material to allow the air to circulate under and around them. 

 If onions are frozen solid in the autumn and kept so all 

 winter, they will come out bright in the spring. A good way 

 to do this is to lay them eighteen inches thick on the floor of 

 a loft and cover with a foot or so of hay. Thus arranged 

 they will not freeze until severe weather sets in and will re- 

 main frozen until spring. They may also be put in water- 

 proof bins in the field where grown and treated in the same 

 way. They should never be handled when frozen, as they are 

 apt to bruise. Freezing and thawing several times seriously 

 injures them, but if kept frozen and gradually thawed out 

 they come out in very nice condition. After thawing out, they 

 will not keep well but quickly start to grow, and should be 

 disposed of at once. 



Onion sets is a term applied to small onions which are 

 planted out in the spring instead of seeds. If onions under 

 three-fourths of an inch in diameter are planted out in the 

 spring, they do not go to seed as do larger onions but form a 

 new bulb and form it much earlier than they are formed when 

 grown from seed. Taking advantage of this fact, it has be- 

 come a common practice to raise these small onions (sets) and 

 plant them out for early summer use. It does not matter how 

 small the set is, and one the size of a peaisasgood as if larger. 

 The size generally preferred is about one-half an inch in diam- 

 eter. 



Planting onion sets. The method of planting sets is to have 

 the land in the same condition as recommended for onion seed 

 and plant the sets as soon as the soil can be worked in the 

 spring. In doing this mark off the land in drills twelve inches 



