GROWING ONION SETS 177 



Care and Disposition of the Crop.— The tillage and general 

 care of a crop of onions grown from sets are essentially the same 

 as for a crop grown from seed, except that comparatively little 

 weeding is required. The crop may be harvested and cured in 

 the same way, but usually should be sold soon after the harvest, 

 before onions grown from seed are available, for prices are likely 

 to be good at that time, and the onions grown from sets are not 

 considered as good keepers for winter use as those grown directly 

 from seed. 



GROWING ONION SETS 



When an onion seed is planted the normal thing for it to do 

 is to produce a bulb. The size of the bulb produced will depend 

 upon circumstances. If the plant has undisputed access to an 

 abundance of food, moisture and sunlight, and the temperature 

 is congenial, the bulb is likely to attain normal size for the variety, 

 — perhaps two, three, or even four inches in diameter. If the 

 soil is poor, or the season dry, or the plants crowded, the bulbs 

 will be smaller; and the more pronounced any or all of these un- 

 favorable conditions, the more strikingly small will be the bulbs. 

 Onion sets are merely miniature onions that have remained small 

 because of the conditions under which they were grown. 



Thickness of Seeding. — In growing onion sets it was formerly 

 the practice to sow the seed late in the season on poor soil. About 

 thirty pounds of seed were used to the acre. The lack of plant 

 food, lack of moisture, and hot weather during which the plants 

 had to make their principal growth, combined with the fairly 

 thick seeding, were depended upon to keep the bulbs small. The 

 practice now among many commercial growers of onion sets is 

 to sow the seed on rich soil at the usual time for sowing onion 

 seed, and to depend primarily upon the thickness of seeding to 

 keep the bulbs from growing too large. From eighty to one hun- 

 dred pounds of seed are used per acre. This is at the rate of about 

 two hundred seeds per foot of drill. Under these conditions it is 

 impossible for the bulbs to become too large for sets except in 

 seasons particularly favorable to their growth. Then the largest 

 bulbs can be screened out and used for pickling, in the case of 

 white and even yellow varieties. 



In sowing seeds for onion sets, the rows are usually made 

 twelve inches apart and the seed is sown with a regular drill the 

 same as for large onions. Sometimes a special attachment is 

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