24 ONION-RAISING. 



being spread very thinly over the floor, ^— those raised from 

 the White Portugal onion to a depth of about two inches, 

 and those from the yellow sorts to a depth of about four 

 inches. A gentle raking occasionally is of advantage to pro- 

 mote dryness, and to prevent sprouting. The yellow variety 

 is the best for keeping, and hence will bear the confinement 

 incident to transportation with less injury ; but the clean, 

 white appearance of the onion raised from the white sets 

 gives them the preference in the rharket. The true set is an 

 onion that has been checked in its annual growth, and dried 

 down before it has matured ; hence it has an additional 

 growth to make before its annual growth is matured, and 

 before this there can be no seed-shoot pushed ; for the onion 

 is a biennial plant, and the seed-shoot belongs to the second 

 year of its growth. 



WHEN PLANTED TO RAISE EARLY ONIONS. 



SETS ARE PLANTED in rows about ten inches apart, and 

 two or three inches distant in the row. As the ground- 

 worms are very apt to remove them when first planted, the 

 bed should be occasionally examined. Some roll them im- 

 mediately after planting : others hold to dropping them in 

 shallow drills, not covering them at all with earth. By the 

 last of June these are ready to sell as green- bunch onions, 

 and come into market as dry onions before those mature 

 that are raised from seed. 



Onion-sets vary in size from a pea to a hazel-nut. The 

 smaller the size of the sets, the greater the number of onions 

 contained in a given quantity ; but many find it for their 

 interest to purchase sets of a good size, as they yield larger 

 onions. Among the market-gardeners in the vicinity of the 

 large cities, onion-sets are very extensively planted, some 



