Brined Onion Industry. 



35i 



class with few wants beyond the bare necessaries of life. They 

 remain, as a rule, very poor, and their food consists for the 

 most part of bread, milk, and potatoes. They usually fatten 

 a pig, and grow sufficient potatoes and other vegetables to meet 

 their own requirements. 



The peeling is chiefly done by women and children at their 

 own homes in the towns where the factories are situated. The 

 peelers fetch the raw onions from the canal wharf and deliver 

 them peeled and washed to the factories. The usual price paid 

 for peeling is one penny per kilo, of 2'2 lb. for silverskins, and 

 three-fifths of a penny per 2'2 lb. for large white and brown 

 onions, known as " bread and cheese onions." 



One advantage of the factory system is the great facilities it 

 affords for turning out large quantities of brined onions of 

 uniform size and appearance selected from the produce of a large 

 number of small growers. In the case of one of the largest 

 factories, which exports a considerable quantity of silverskins to 

 Great Britain, this process of selection is assisted by the practice 

 of sorting the onions when purchasing them from the growers 

 in order to exclude outside sizes. 



Another important feature noticed in one of the Dutch brining 

 factories is the use of improved apparatus for grading the onions. 

 In place of the round hand sieves with cane bottoms and a 

 square mesh, which are still used in Biggleswade, an oblong 

 riddle is employed, about 4 feet long by 3 feet 6 inches wide. 

 This consists of three trays fitting into each other, with zinc 

 bottoms perforated with round holes, according to the sizes of 

 the different grades of onions that each tray is intended to deal 

 with, the tray with the largest holes being at the top, and that 

 with the smallest at the bottom. A further improvement ob- 

 served is the use of horizontal troughs for the sorting of the 

 riddled onions, in order to pick out discoloured specimens, 

 " pipes," and bad shapes. 



The onions are sorted into four sizes, the finest being, on the 

 whole, smaller than the best English ; and are then put into 

 casks and brined. 



As regards prices, the first grade fetched this year 70s. per 

 hogshead, f.o.b. Rotterdam, according to the latest quotations, 

 and other grades ranged down to 24s., th: latter being for very 



