212 MAKING HORTICULTURE PAY 



" I have never sown a cover crop after onions, 

 because this would interfere with cultivation in 

 the following season. The green stuff or roots 

 would tear up the onion seedlings. I have never 

 found it profitable to store onions for the winter 

 market. The shrinkage and waste takes the extra 

 price, and the extra care and labor makes it un- 

 profitable for me to store. Culls and rubbish are 

 generally thrown on hard land and plowed under, 

 though sometimes they are pitched on brush heaps 

 and burned. This is always done when onion 

 maggots have been prevalent." 



GIBRALTAR ONION 



Concerning the Gibraltar onion L. C. Seal of 

 Bartholomew county. Indiana, writes, " The Gib- 

 raltar onion is claimed to be the largest onion in 

 existence, standing in a class of its own. It is a 

 rank grower on congenial soil and has coarse 

 blades of a glossy, olive green. The layers of flesh 

 are thick, solid, juicy, snow white, and very mild 

 in flavor. Probably its only fault as raised in this 

 country is its inclination to early decay. It can- 

 not be classed as a keeper, but it can as an ' eater,' 

 and must be consumed in season. As a table onion 

 it cannot be excelled. 



" By February 22 the rank heat in my hotbed 

 was subsiding, and I sowed the seed in drills 1 inch 

 apart and rather thickly. It came up fairly well, 

 giving me from six to ten plants to the linear inch. 

 Prizetaker and Great Cardinal seed were sown in 

 the same bed at the same time, but did not come 

 up well. 



" After two weeks, when the bed had reached the 

 minimum temperature of 68 degrees, I resowed the 



