44 ONIONS FOR PROFIT, 



The regular hands employed by professional gardeners 

 and truckers, however, are accustomed to handle and set 

 all kinds of plants, and among these hands we will find 

 some capable of putting out from 6000 to 8000 plants a 

 day. The onion grower who controls that kind of labor 

 will not be scared by the task of planting onions in this 

 way by the acre, or acres. Mr. A. J. Root, of Ohio, esti- 

 mates the cost of setting the plants at $25 per acre. Mr. 

 John F. White, of Mount Morris, N. Y., who grew three 

 acres by the new method this year, and intends to more 

 than treble that area next season, tells me that twelve of his 

 men — all used to handling celery and cabbage plants — will 

 plant an acre of onions in a day. The cost of the job, 

 therefore, depends altogether on the kind of labor you can 

 get. 



I always aim for the largest yield, and for this reason 

 crowd my plants all I dare to. I find that twelve inches 

 distance between the rows is just about right. Mr. White 

 thinks of making them ten inches apart in future, but I 

 would advise against it. 



One of the greatest mistakes, however, that we are apt to 

 make, and that all who have tried the new method, myself 

 included, have heretofore invariably fallen into, is to set 

 the plants too far apart in the rows. In growing onions by 

 the old method, we thought nothing of leaving from one to 

 three plants to the inch of row, and we expected to see the 

 bulbs crowd each other sideways, and grow in heaps and 

 tiers. Just take a look at the illustration of part of a field 

 showing the old way of growing onions, and see how thickly 

 they stand in the rows. Then, look at the next picture, 

 which shows onions grown by the new plan, and note how 

 far apart the bulbs are. The mistake here made is quite 

 apparent. There are great gaps in the rows, and only here 

 and there are the onions close enough together to give a 



