154 Teuck Growing in the South. 



ONIONS IN THE SOUTH. 

 By H. G. Hastings. 



The South sends several million dollars a year to the 

 Northern States and foreign countries for onions; yet the 

 onion as a commercial crop in the South, when properly 

 handled, is the safest and most profitable vegetable crop 

 that can be grown. Texas and Louisiana are the only 

 Southern States where the onion is grown extensively as 

 a market crop, and the Bermuda onion brings from one 

 and a half to two million dollars cash every year into a 

 comparatively limited territory in Texas. 



The culture of onions in the South presents three dis- 

 tinct phases : the growth from fall-sown seed of the Ber- 

 muda varities under irrigation as practiced in southwest 

 Texas ; fall sowing of the Bermuda varieties and the Cre- 

 ole in Florida and all along the Gulf Coast section of Geor- 

 gia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and southeast Texas, 

 a strip extending fifty to seventy-five miles back from the 

 coast, the crop being grown with the natural rainfall ; and 

 last, the growth of the crop from spring planted seed in 

 the central South. 



Profitable crops of onions can be grown almost any- 

 where in this territory but the intending planter must re- 

 member two things in connection with this crop; first, 

 that the onion is' a heavy feeder and requires either rich 

 or heavily fertilized land; second, the crop requires very 

 careful cultivation from start to finish. An onion crop, 

 to be successful, must have a much higher grade of treat- 

 ment than the average negro hand gives cotton. Unless 



