3 I2 



GARDEN FARMING 



Previous to planting, the surface of the onion field should be 

 made very fine and smooth and as level as possible. Implements 

 suitable for this work are the disk harrow, which will thoroughly 

 stir the soil and incorporate the manure and vegetable matter with 

 it ; the spike-tooth, or acme harrow, which will smooth the sur- 

 face ; and the Meeker disk harrow, which will leave the field in 

 condition for seed sowing either by hand or with a seed drill. The 

 Meeker harrow, illustrated in figure 33, is considered to be the 

 most valuable implement that can be owned by the truck farmer, 

 and especially by the onion grower ; it will leave the soil in the 

 same condition that raking with an ordinary steel-tooth garden 

 rake would leave it. Previous to this last cultivation the fertilizer 

 should be applied either with the broadcast fertilizer distributor, 

 which should be followed by the harrow to work it into the soil, 

 or with the ordinary grain drill. Drilling serves as a cultivation of 

 the soil and at the same time incorporates the fertilizer with the 

 surface soil of the seed bed. 



Seed. Onion seed is not always of high quality. The grower 

 should carefully test a sample of the seed he proposes to use far 

 enough in advance of the normal planting season to allow time to 

 replace it if it should prove not to be viable. Such a test may con- 

 sist in planting a definite number of seeds, two or three hundred, 

 in a box in a living room, or in scattering the seeds on a moist 

 blotter and covering them with a second, the two to be placed in 

 some receptacle that will keep them moist. Care should be taken 

 to keep the germinating seeds at a suitable temperature from 

 45 to 65 F. Either of these devices will indicate the quality 

 of the seeds. If the seed is low in germinating power, it should 

 either be discarded or a much larger quantity sown per acre than 

 is normally required. It is not economy to buy cheap or inferior 

 seed, for this is a comparatively small item in the total cost of pro- 

 ducing a crop of onions. To secure a satisfactory stand of plants 

 care must be used to get seed of a good strain, true to name, and 

 of high germinating power. Onion seed contains a large quantity 

 of oil, which readily becomes rancid, causing rapid deterioration 

 in the quality of the seed. This means that old seed is apt to 

 germinate unsatisfactorily. It is claimed, however, that deterioration 

 is much more rapid in the climate of the Eastern states because the 



