420 



F«buary, 1914 



Onion Growing. 



The crop has the valuable advan- 

 tage of being one of the few possible 

 to the market gardener that need not 

 be marketed at the moment of attain- 

 ing maturity. Onions, to be successful, 

 must be grown on clean land. The 

 most suitable soil is a rich, sandy 

 loam, free, friable, and easy to work — 

 a soil that will not cake, and not 

 lying so low as to retain the super- 

 abundant moisture after heavy rains. 

 In such case the land should be well 

 drained. 



.•\s soon as the land is dry enough 

 after the early rains to be pro- 

 perly worked, and when that work is 

 completed, sowing begins. Getting the 

 land into proper order means — if the 

 land is not virgin soil, or if it has 

 borne crops for many years in suc- 

 cession without manuring — that it 

 should be reduced to a fine tilth, and 

 thoroughly well manured with stable 

 dung, ashes, bonedust, soot, sulphate 

 of iron, and sulphate of potash. A 

 good manure for onions is a light 

 dressing of dung, supplemented by 

 4 to 6 cwt. of superphosphate,! cwt. 

 of sulphate of potash (or 4 cwt. of 

 kainit), and 4 cwt. of nitrate of soda. 

 Potash is of vital importance to 

 onions, and should on no account be 



neglected. It is valuable in improv- 

 ing the keeping quality, and sulphate 

 of iron is a preventive of onion 

 mildew. 



Getting the land in good order in- 

 cludes well rolling it, for an indis- 

 pensable cultural condition for onions 

 is to get the soil well firmed under- 

 neath without "panning" it. This 

 condition is often lost sight of. If the 

 soil is carefully worked, reduced to a 

 fine tilth, and the plants are set out 

 in a soil which is loosened to a depth 

 of, perhaps, 8 in., no good results can 

 be expected without rolling. The 

 onion requires a firm bed; otherwise 

 the plant, instead of making a large, 

 well-shaped bulb, will run to "neck," 

 and have more the appearance of a 

 leek than an onion. 



The best way to sow onions is to 

 drill them in, although for small areas 

 the seed may be sown in a seed bed, 

 and the young seedlings be planted 

 out.' The drills should be from 8 in. 

 to 15 in. apart, which will require 

 from 8 lb. to 10 lb. of seed per acre. 

 The seeds should be dropped at a dis- 

 tance of 2 to 3 in. apart in the drills, 

 and the plants will afterwards be re- 

 quired to be thinned out with the 

 hoe to 6 in. apart in rich land. The 

 drills should be slightly raised, and 

 the roots of the plants be firmly em- 



bedded in them. The bulb is not the 

 root, and it should be allowed, so to 

 speak, to squat on the surface, not 

 under it. 



As the plant grows, the soil must be 

 kept perfectly clear of weeds; and 

 where the working of the ground has^ 

 thrown the soil against the bulbs, it 

 must be drawn down so that only the 

 root is in the ground. Where this 

 has not been attended to, the remedy 

 for the resulting want of bulb-forma- 

 tion is to wring the necks of the 

 plants, or, at least, to bend them 

 down with a twist. This will have 

 the effect of inducing the formation of 

 bulbs. 



When sowing the seed, it need only 

 be put just under the ground, as it 

 requires but a very slight covering of 

 soil. If sown deep, many seeds fail 

 to germinate, and most of those that 

 do appear will make an abnormal 

 growth of neck, causing much labour 

 in drawing away the soil from the in- 

 cipient bulbs. There are few seeds so 

 annoyingly deceptive as onion seed, 

 as old seed will lose its germinating 

 power, and imported seeds, unless 

 carefully packed in airtight bottles or 

 soldered tins, will scarcely germinate 

 at all. Therefore, it is well to make 

 sure of getting new seed. After sow- 

 ing, germination should take place in 

 about a week, and the onion comes to 

 maturity in from 120 to 180 days 

 (spring onions in from 60 to 90 days). 

 They may be known to be ripe by 

 the drying up of the tops. As soon as 

 this happens, pulling should be done 

 quickly, because, if wet should come 

 on, the liulbs may start a fresh root 

 action. This, besides making them 

 harder to pull, will seriously impair 

 their quality. After they are pulled, 

 the onions are left in narrow "wind- 

 rows" to get well dried and ripened, 

 and may then be removed to a dry 

 barn, subject to a free current of air. 

 Should they show any signs of heat- 

 ing they must be at once turned over, 

 and the bad ones picked out during 

 tlie process. 



The great possibilities of onion- 

 growing may perhaps be realized 

 from the following figures given in 

 "Commercial Gardening" — Vegetable- 

 growing for Market: — 



"Assuming the rows to be 1 ft. 

 apart, and the plants, after thinning 

 out, to be 3 in. apart, as a fair dis- 

 tance for market-garden culture, there 

 would be 174,240 to an acre. At an 

 average weight of 8 oz. each, the yield 



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ABTIFICIAL TEETH ON EASY WEEKLY PAYMENTS. 

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r A. WILSON, Man»f.'in|{ Director. 



