84 GABDE^I^G FOB YOUKG AtfD OLD. 



neglecting to hoe and weed the crop when young, is an- 

 other cause, and possibly, poor land has something to do 

 with it. It is usual to sow five pounds of onion seed per 

 acre. But I am aware that this does not tell you how 

 thick you must sow the seed. I should set the drill to 

 drop about three seeds to each inch of row. It is far bet- 

 ter to have an onion crop too thick than too thin. In 

 hoeing and weeding, no matter how careful you may be, 

 more or less omons will be destroyed. 



The market demand is not so much for large onions 

 as formerly. It is far better to have three moderate- 

 sized bulbs than one very large one, and the old practice 

 of thinning onions so as to leave only one bulb to each 

 three or four inches of row, is now abandoned by all ex- 

 perienced growers. Onions will grow in bunches, three, 

 four, or five in a bunch, and if the land is rich enough, 

 and the rows are sufficiently wide apart, a dozen, fifteen, 

 or even twenty onions can be grown on each foot of row. 



The Onion-maggot is sometimes quite troublesome. 

 It rarely troubles me, but one of my neighbors, who 

 raises large crops of onions on what was formerly a 

 Black- Ash swamp, and which is even still only partially 

 drained, occasionally suffers much loss. He thinks an 

 application of four hundred pounds of salt per acre, sown 

 broadcast early in the spring, will kill the maggot; per- 

 haps so, perhaps not. The salt, however, will do no 

 harm, and may otherwise do good, even if it does not 

 always kill the maggot. I have known Peruvian guano 

 to be used for the same purpose with decided advantage; 

 and so with superphosphate of lime, or any other good 

 fertilizer. Any thing which will promote rapid growth, 

 will lesson the chances of injury from maggots or loss 

 from scallions. 



Perhaps a word should be said in regard to the best 

 land for onions. In point of fact there is no best land 

 for them; you must make the land. Onions will grow 



