40 



ONIONS ON MUCK 



lands that are not as badly affected, we have found from 

 sixty per cent, upward. 



Then we have the blight to contend with. The blight I 

 hardly know how to handle. When it comes we are at sea, 

 but we have had suggestions as to what we ought to do. 

 They say we ought to spray. If we should spray all our onion 

 land, it would be a great expense, an expense that we could 

 not afford. 



Then we have thrips to contend with. Nothing has been 

 found as yet that would eliminate thrips entirely. Spraying 

 has been advocated for that, a kerosene emulsion. We have 

 not tried that. Our worst trouble has been the smut. 



Sowing and Cultivation. 



Leaving these diseases aside, we plant the onion seed with 

 hand drills (in rows) from twelve to fourteen inches apart. 

 I have taken a medium between the two extremes and seem 

 to get good results. Then the cultivation. As soon as our 

 onion seeds are planted and are up out of the ground, so that 

 we think the cultivation will not injure them, we commence 

 w^ith wheel hoes, going back and forth through the rows, not 

 too deep on the start, simply deep enough to catch the small 

 weeds that are just coming up. 



Weeders. 



We cannot destroy the very small weeds in the rows by 

 hand, so a number of machines have been devised for eliminat- 

 ing them. One that we had last season proved very satis- 

 factory. One party I know" had one of these machines, and 

 one man took care of the weeding for seven acres until what 

 few weeds there were got up where it was impossible to do 

 anything with them (with the machines) and the onions got 

 so large the machine could not be run through them. Then 

 they had children go through them once to pull out the weeds 

 and then allowed them to go. They made a very good crop 

 of onions, four to five hundred bushels to the acre. Before 

 we had a machine for the purpose — and I suppose the ma- 

 jority of the people would still undertake it — we did the 

 weeding by hand, picking out one little weed at a time. If 



