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weeds; weeds which can not be reached with the hoe 

 should be pulled out by hand. It is absolutely essential 

 to keep the crop clean. The object is, to stimulate 

 growth on the one hand, and to produce early maturity 

 on the other, with a tendency to produce bulbs. We 

 wish to raise dwarf onions. We can not do this unless 

 every condition for the growth of the plant, except root 

 pruning and excessive crowding, is favorable. It is not 

 easy to keep onion sets during the winter, and in fact 

 the better way is to plant the sets in the fall. They will 

 stand the winter without injury, and give a larger crop. 

 If, however, you wish to keep the sets through the win- 

 ter, do not put them in a damp cellar, but in a dry loft, 

 which can be kept as near the freezing point as possible, 

 so as to prevent them from starting to grow. Freezing 

 will not injure them, provided you can keep them from 

 thawing until they are wanted in the spring. 



KAISING ONION" SEED. 



It is a very important matter to have good seed, and I 

 recommend my young friends to select a few of their 

 choicest and best onions and set them out every fall for 

 seed. Onions for seed can be set in spring or autumn, 

 but the latter is the best time. And here I would like 

 to tell the boys an important discovery which I think I 

 have made, and which I am almost tempted to keep for 

 my own use and profit, as I think there is money in it. 

 I have for the last eighteen years been growing seed of 

 the Yellow Danvers variety. I selected the very best 

 bulbs from a large crop each year, and I succeeded in get- 

 ting a strain of the choicest seed. It produced the finest 

 onions, but I could get scarcely any seed. When I raised 

 the seed it was very valuable; but there was so little of it, 

 that it has sometimes cost me one hundred dollars per 

 pound. The onions were so good that they would not 



