5 



water will bare the roots of some, and heap the earth around 

 the necks of others, to the injury of each. 



PREPARING THE SOIL. 



Don't plant a weedy soil to onions, or land which abounds 

 in witch, or couch grass ; if you do, you will repent it on 

 your hands and knees all summer long, for such soil ^^'ill usu- 

 ally require two more weedings than that on which weeds 

 have not been allowed to ripen their seed. To have to keep 

 down witch grass with your fingers in an onion bed is a mis- 

 erable business, tearing up the onions and your patience at 

 the same time ; better delay a year, and meanwhile clear the 

 land thoroughly by a diligent use of the cultivator and hoe^ 

 finishing in the fall by throwing the land into ridges that the 

 freezings and thawings of winter may act destructively on the 

 roots of the witch grass. Should any scattered shoot of this, 

 grass show itself in the spring, let the roots be carefully re- 

 moved with a fork or spade before the land is plowed. 



When onions are planted on land full of the seed of weeds 

 it is well, if the season is an early one, to give sufficient time 

 for the first crop of weed seed to start before planting the on- 

 ions. 



In the Eastern States it is found, as a general rule, that suc- 

 cess with the first crop of onions is affected by the crop which 

 grew in the land the previous year, and that onions ^viYL follow 

 carrots better than any other crop ; next to carrots, corn and 

 potatoes are ranked as good preparers of the ground, while to 

 succeed well with onions where cabbage or beets were raised 

 the previous year is comparatively rare. Were there no other 

 reason, the clean tilth which carrots insure makes it an excel- 

 lent crop to precede onions. In the fertile lands of the west, 

 the method of procedure is briefly this : Land on which grows 



