ONION-RAISING. 



WHY I WRITE THIS TREATISE. 



IN COMMON with my fellow-seedsmen, I frequently receive 

 letters from my farmer-friends, in different parts of the 

 United States, asking for information on onion-raising. It 

 is impossible in a letter-sheet to give sufficient minuteness 

 of detail. I therefore send out this little treatise, in which I 

 have endeavored to cover very minutely the whole ground 

 of inquiry. I trust that it will prove acceptable. 



SELECTING THE SOIL. 



UNTIL WITHIN the last score of years, onions were an 

 exception to the general rule, and did better on land 

 on which they had been raised for successive years, 



I once examined an acre of land which had been planted 

 continuously with onions for three generations, without per- 

 ceptible decrease in the quantity or quality of the crop. 



Of late we find, that, with the cultivation of about half a 

 dozen years on the same piece of land, come the disease 

 known as " smut," or " rust," or attacks from the onion- 

 maggot, to such a degree as to make the continuous culti- 



