37 



RAISING ONION SEED. 



What does all this investment of money, time, labor and 

 watchfulness, amount to if the seed is worthless, has no vital- 

 ity, is not true to name, or was grown from worthless trash? 

 Onion seed should be raised from the very best onions of the 

 very best crop grown in the vicinity. The best t}^e should 

 be first selected, which should be a medium sized onion, very 

 hard and compact in structure, with a close, thin, fine skin, 

 and a very small neck. Those selected for seed should be 

 the earliest ripened of the crop, provided such are fully ripen- 

 ed and not blighted. To select the earUest onions, the 

 seed grower should visit the field before the crop is pulled. 



Onion seed is sometimes (I fear too often) grown from the 

 entire crop, be it good, bad or indifferent. A great step of 

 improvement on this is to purchase outright as good a crop 

 as can be found ; but the only way to secure and keep the 

 best and most reliable seed is that first given. Poor onion 

 seed is always very dear indeed, as a present, while first-class 

 seed at the highest price yet paid is worth a long and careful 

 seeking. 



Seed onions should be kept in a cool, dry place, spread to 

 about a foot in depth ; if kept in barrel, (old Hme casks are 

 best) these should be left unheaded, and two or three pieces 

 should be chopped off near the bottom to admit a circulation 

 of air. As early in the spring as the ground can be worked, 

 they- should be set out in trenches, (the onion when covered 

 in trenches will stand a heavy frost \\dthout injury,) which 

 should be from three to four feet apart and about four inches 

 below the surface, the land having first been heavily manured. 

 Some good seed growers apply their manure directly in the 

 trench, while others spread it broadcast and plow in. I pre- 



