44 BULLETIN 1325, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
tion of 28 per cent in shipments and only 20 per cent in unloads, 
using the high and low figures for five years. 
On the other hand, the destinations of shipments differ much in 
different years. In years of abimdance many cars go to small cities. 
In lean years large cities receive most of the crop ; smaller places 
go without or depend on less than car-lot shipments from the larger 
markets. 
The reported unloads include three kinds of onions: (1) The main 
or late crop from Northern States; (2) the early or southern crop, 
chiefly Bermudas from Texas and California; and (3) imported 
onions from Spain, Egypt, Bermuda, and a few other points. Most 
imports are landed at Xew York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Onions 
grown from sets in the late-crop States and harvested before the 
late crop is put on the market are not separately reported by the 
Department of Agriculture, but are included with the late-crop 
unloads. The early onions unloaded at 12 markets amount to ap- 
proximately 3,000 cars yearly (Table 5), out of an average of nearly 
13,000 carloads of all varieties, but they fluctuated from about 2,800 
to around 3,800 during the three seasons 1920 to 1922. This is, 
roughly, between one-fifth and one-fourth of the total cars unloaded 
at these cities. Great variations in the relative quantities of early 
and main-crop onions occur from season to season and from city to 
city. 
About 20 per cent of the onions that Xew York uses are Bermudas 
and 80 per cent are of the main crop. Early onions ordinarily make 
up about one-third of Chicago's supply. Twenty per cent of the 
onions unloaded at Philadelphia are early stock. 
Included in the reported unloads of late onions in the 12 cities is 
a variable quantity of imported stock, which from 1920 to 1924 
averaged over 2.000 cars per year. 
SEASONAL CONSUMPTION OF CITIES 
Onions arrive at the city markets every month in the year, but the 
unloads are by no means uniform. For cities of record, May is 
usually the month of heaviest receipts. Since most of the spring 
receipts are of early onions which can be stored only for a short time, 
it would seem that city consumption is heaviest during the flush 
period of early-onion shipment. September and October are the 
months of greatest receipts of onions for storage, though during the 
first half of Xovember unloads are often large, especially in the 
more southern of the 12 specified cities. 
Some interesting features are characteristic of different cities. 
Figure 27 indicates the average monthly unloads at seven principal 
cities for the years 1918 to 1922, inclusive. The individual fluctua- 
tions are well brought out. It must be borne in mind that many late 
onions go immediately into storage on arrival at the city markets, so 
that receipts and consumption of late onions do not necessarily mean 
the same thing. 
VOLUME OF SHIPMENTS 
The car-lot unloads reported at 12 cities include more than half 
(53 per cent) of all onions shipped from the commercial-producing 
regions. Data are now being collected which will indicate where a 
